A post from Jubilee, including a look at Ally Pally

I've been too busy to blog much in the last couple of weeks. First there was the nine-performance run of the village pantomime, in which I even got a few lines in the last two performances replacing someone who couldn't be there; and then I've been helping Ally and Ben with painting etc. Add into the mix the fact that I got a sore throat and high temperature - and lost my appetite - and you will see why I haven't been around the blogosphere for a bit.

After coming to see me in the Panto A+B took me and my folding bike back to MK with them. I used Jubilee as a base, cycling the four or so miles to Wolverton every morning. In the evenings they drove me (plus bike) back to the boat. On Thursday Ben and I enjoyed a "Western Breakfast" in the North Western pub (they do terrific fry-ups, with proper butcher's sausages and perfect fried bread) before I caught the 1137 train to Euston.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera, as there came a sight I hadn't been expecting. On the train from King's Cross to Cambridge (an "express non-stop" as the train announcement put it) we passed the place where my BBC career began back in 1980: Alexandra Palace, where the world's first "high definition" television service began, just 44 years before I joined. (The 405-line Marconi-EMI system eventually settled on was certainly high definition in comparison to the previous experiments with 30-line systems.) A good website for the early days of television is here.

Once home I suffered with my cold/flu before loading the car and picking Jan up from school. Then she drove while I tried to snooze to MK. The reason for this second visit only the next day was that Jan had a committee meetin of the Boaters' Christian Fellowship to attend in Banbury on Saturday. The boat made a good stopping-off point, meaning that the drive through the lovely Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire countryside in the morning would take less than an hour.

Well, that's enough for now. Jan is packing up around me and I think I ought to do my bit. I'll write later about who I met in Banbury.