The debonair Basil Marigold's

I was sat in the dining room this afternoon catching up on some paperwork when the landline phone started ringing. This is an odd sound for me as I am rarely in, but since I have been off work at home for the last week we tend to get 3 or 4 very pointless calls a day. They are either energy efficiency windows or automated messages. All rubbish. So, today, the phone starts ringing while the children are in the front room. They are very focused when they are watching television. As I say I am in the dining room. It rings a few times. By this point I have decided I am not going in to pick it up. The ringing stops suddenly and a plastic on plastic noise.  I then hear my son say to his sister, the television queen, 'Problem solved.'  By the sounds of it he has learnt to lift the receiver and then just put it straight down!  An effective new anti-phone spam device...

The one benefit of extended holidays is that I often find this the time to make a dent in the books to be read pile. A good meaningful dent. I know I shall never clear the to read pile as if you could do that then you are doing it wrong. This pile should always exist. In fact the last thought on your death bed should probably be, 'damn, I'm not going to have a chance to read that one now...poot!'.  People may of course disagree with me over this. I mean, they'd be wrong but they'd be entitled to their opinion.

We find ourselves in Devon again. It's a fairly annual event. Last year we came down loaded with our English Heritage card. We made the most of it during our stay by visiting places like Totnes Castle, and Berry Pomeroy. This year we have no English Heritage card. We have swapped. We now have membership of the National Trust. Slightly different to English Heritage as if it rains then with National Trust you find that most sites have a good, solid roof on it. This was not always the case with English Heritage. The odd afternoon stood sheltering in Abbey archways is proof positive of this. So, armed with our bright orange National Trust cards we begin adventures in Devon. One of the places that was on our list was Greenway. The holiday home of Agatha Christie. It's a property that clings to the banks of the river Dart. Up river from Kingswear & Dartmouth. There are a few ways to visit the property. We pre-booked a car parking space. However, you have the option of arriving by