...goes something like this:

• Get up late. (Rarely manage it, have lost the skill)
  
• Veg around for a bit whilst Al takes the girls to gym. Drink lots of coffee
  
• Go to the pub with my Dad just before the girls return
  
• Get back from the pub just in time for a series of major sporting events that command my immediate attention
  
• Muck around with Hatty and Abby. Despatch them to bed.
  
• Veg around for the evening with Al and indulge Saturday night relaxation 'activities'

This Saturday I:

• Woke up at 4am. Read all the broadsheet reviews of England's victory over Australia in the first one-dayer yesterday
  
• Went back to bed at 5am
  
• Woke up at 8am and vegged around a bit. Drunk lots of coffee. Sorted family finances for month-end
  
• Watched the highlights of England's victory over Australia in the first one-dayer yesterday
  
• Decided not to go to the pub with my Dad, on account of his deciding not to go to the pub
  
• Opened Amazon parcels containing fantastic boys toys. Discovered motivation
  
• Trimmed the worlds smallest hedge, in the front garden
  
• Cleared all the weeds in the front garden
  
• Reduced the bay bush to a rather effeminate 'ball on a stick'
  
• Took new boy's toy to the non-closing front gate and re-sited the catch. Primed. The gate now closes
  
• Took Abby to Wallington to buy beer and birthday presents. Had Saharan sand washed from car
• Took pictures of girls eating boiled eggs
• Removed several hundredweight of growth from the side of the house
• Removed several more hundredweight from the bin alley at the back
• Cleared up two lots of several hundredweight of growth, plus snails
• Tidied the shed. Chemically laid waste to the patio moss. Dreamed up projects for my other new boy's toy
• Watched Andy Murray beat Marcos Baghdatis in ridiculous 11th hour nailbiter
• Realised I had run out of time for relaxation 'activities'. And Al had gone to bed.

So. A truly rubbish Saturday. But I feel I have bought myself licence to watch England beat Australia in the second one-dayer tomorrow. Fit in some work that I just have to do before the week commences and I'm back to the Monday-Friday grind.

It's all crap, frankly.

I remember my first camera. A 110mm Kodak thingy that was as cool as: I think it might well have been one of these. A film cost about a day's wages, developing it twice as much. It produced nasty, blurry snaps from its fixed-focus lens but hey, it's all there was.

Step forward a few years. Hatty's 6th birthday. Hatty's first camera. If I'd had one of these in the mid-70's I would undoubtedly have been the next Almodovar. What a waste of my burgeoning, mercurial talent.

Of course, the problem with giving such a devastating handful of technology to a 6-year old is that they have no concept of data-storage. Hatty is turning out 500MB a day... 'Oh No... the batteries have run out...'

Which is much, much older than five. 20% older than five in fact and also, temporarily, only three years younger than her sister. It's no wonder she's been counting down the days for the last three months.

There's a well-established routine around this stuff now.  We restrict attendance at the family party to cousins, grandparents and a couple of close friends. On my side of the family this means four. Al's Catholic clan add a further 20 odd, so the kitchen creaks at the seams. Al does loads of food, people bring more food, beer and wine are distributed and the whole affair kicks on into the evening. If we'd set a pack of wild dingoes on Al's Moroccan lamb, I suspect it would have lasted longer.

Children charge around the place, hoofing great teenagers turn my tiny lawn into a mudbath and Hatty revels in the whole centre of attention thing. In a departure from normal practice, half the attendees sat down to despair at England's failure to win some bit of football tat, which bothered me less than the hoofing great teenagers, since we'd scored a much more interesting victory earlier in the day, albeit in the 'For Dummies' variant of the sport. As Hatty's birthday was actually today, we did it again on a smaller scale. Hatty got to choose her birthday tea, hence the KFC littering the last few photos. Good choice.

Some idiot bought her a camera that automatically puts a milkmaid's hat on pictures of Daddy. I despair. Mostly because I think it was me.

So. It's Father's Day. And, as is traditional, I though I'd turn my hand to a bit of DIY.  Specifically, the curtain rail in our bedroom - because it's falling off the wall and has been an inherited disaster area since we moved here, 10 years ago.

You can see what I had to contend with: None of the holes depicted are anything to do with me.  But this is a 130-year old Victorian house - the walls are made of cheese and are already honeycombed with DIY bodges.

Things I learnt today:

• The only way to put up curtain rails in Victorian houses is with BIG BLOODY BATTENS.
  
• My ceilings aren't level. Or my floors. Or the top of my window-frames.  I'm surprised I can get out of bed without falling over.
  
• If you need a 7mm hole, start with a 4mm bit and adjust for wobbling.
• The previous owner of this house was the DIY numbskull from hell.
  
• This is a 5 hour job, with a fair bit of sweating.  But I can live with that for perfect results, which is what they are. I am very happy.
  
• This bit of kit is positively excellent: Commended to the House.
• Oh. Mark 'Top' on the battens before you drop them on the floor. It's a lot less stressful.
  

Also: Father's Day is really good for DIY, because you get a cake at the end.

All too rarely - but every now and then - someone comes up with a video-game concept that is entirely new. Portal was about as entirely new as it could get and quite brilliant for a bit of lateral thinking. On the basis that you may not know what I'm wibbling about... this was Valve's original promo-video:
 

Why am I writing about it now?  Because I've just stumbled across some guys playing it in real-life...