I hope you had a good half term. We spent a lovely week on the Cornish Riveria for the half-term holidays with the extended Ranson family but the weather was typically 'English'.

When it's dry, England is a fantastic place to have a holiday, but when it drizzles it can be miserable and expensive, too.

Spending lazy days on the beautiful English beaches in Cornwall flying kites, building sandcastles and playing catch can't be beaten but, when the rain comes, most families can be found sheltering inside the bowling alleys, cinemas and expensive tourist attractions.

We spent a wonderful sunny day cycling the Camel trail from Padstow to Wadebridge and - inspired by the Hasbro charity cyclists I wrote about last week - I managed to cycle the 10 miles without moaning.

The fact that Alex's little legs managed the 10 miles, too, was inspiration enough!

The weather was beautiful, the scenery amazing, and the sore bum the next day was a small price to pay for such a fun day.

Alex had me doing yummy mummy jobs with a needle and thread this week. He'd finally outgrown his favourite old pair of jogging bottoms but he wasn't letting go of them.

The large hole in the knee had been patched up by his doting grandma a year ago when I'd have chucked them in the bin.

As I explained to Alex that they really did need to go in the bin this time and there was no way we could pass them on to his friends Elliot and Cameron, where all his outgrown clothes usually go, you could see a lightbulb go off in his head.

'If you cut the bottoms of my trousers off Mummy, you can turn them into shorts for me!'

So I unpicked the pirate patch that his grandma had sewn on to cover the initial hole, stitched this onto his favourite blanket and I cut the lower legs off his 'joggers' making a comfy pair of shorts.

As I put the sewing box away, Alex called me back with a huge smile saying: "If we sew up the ends of the legs we can make sleeping bags for my toy dogs!" That would be the royal 'we' then wouldn't it!

So I retrieved the sewing box and dutifully stitched the discarded jogging bottom legs up, turning them into stuffed toy sleeping bags.

Feeling quite proud of myself, I gathered up the sewing box only for Alex to turn to me and say: "Do you think your mum will mind you using her sewing box?".

The cheek of it! I pointed out that it was actually my sewing box, but Alex quite rightly said he'd never seen me use it - only his grandma!