Once again, dear Followers around the globe, you feel betrayed. I know, and I'm sorry. No wonder there have been just 11 page views today. There's nothing worse than being blogless, I'm sure, so I will try to make amends.

Let me explain. I honestly haven't been skiving: on Wednesday night I was taking our younger daughter back to school, which coincided with our own end of Long Leave. She drove me from our house to the school, and I have to say that she did rather well. And other than forgetting to pull on the handbrake at the end, which nearly resulted in the two of us making a forced entry into the housemistress's study (via the brick wall), all was fine. I then travelled alone from Milton Abbas to Oxford, listening to a very challenging episode of 'The Moral Maze'. It certainly got my brain into gear.

Last night, of course, being a Thursday, meant that Mr Porter was in command, and I believe that everything was as it should have been. Meanwhile, your correspondent was networking at summer party in London, befriending those within two international educational consultancies who have invited me to consider joining them, post-retirement. All very exciting, and a jolly time was had by all.

Here tonight, I have actually been on duty, along with Mrs C, and we've had a lovely, trouble-free evening. One dorm managed to persuade me to share some of my schoolboy experiences (at which they were generous enough to laugh when I reached the denouement of the various stories (hyperbole-free, of course), and I then strode purposefully out to the Boys' Garden to enjoin with those playing table tennis. I managed to hold my own for a while, to which I received the appropriately backhanded compliment of

"Sir! You're actually pretty good - bearing in mind how little time you have to play!"

"Thank you, H***y! How very kind!" (Of course, I know that every time I incorporate the name H***y, there are six of you who wonder whether it is your H***y. So tonight, unless your surname begins with T, you won't know which one I mean.

Silent Reading came and went, and now they're all in their SPs (somnolent postures - remember?) and trying to get to sleep. Not always easy in the summer term, but they're trying hard.

Do keep tuning in: there'll be more tomorrow. And I'm sorry again about the last two nights.

Goodnight. Oh! PS! Our elder daughter, Hannah, passed her driving test!! Another chauffeuse in the family! I mean - isn't that great news?