Lincolnshire schools have another week of holiday, so I told Jess that I would take her for a day out on the days Helen was working. She asked if she could bring a friend, and chose Joel. So yesterday we went to Lincoln: Jess, Joel, Callum (Joel's little brother, my youngest godson, who goes to school in North East Lincolnshire and is back today), Joe and me.

We parked, left Joe at the cathedral, and headed downhill to The Collection - Lincoln's new museum of archaeology - where we split into two groups: Jess and Joel, Callum and Clarissa. There is lots of hands on stuff which Callum enjoyed enormously; so did the other two, but they insisted on keeping up a teenagerish commentary of boredom all the time they were making mosaics, sorting bones and pots, trying on costumes, and examining materials. We went on to the art gallery where the Lowrys, the de Wints etc. etc. as well as all the modern stuff in the temporary exhibitions was met with indifference or 'I could do better' until we came to two paintings of horses and hounds on the stairs of which the children approved. Now, I won't pretend that all the modern art on display appeals to me or even makes much sense, but there was nothing which did not display considerable craftsmanship. One nice thing was two large drawing pads and pencils for visitors to add their own artwork. Callum sat in a chair and dozed off so I have left a small pencil sketch of him, and Joel has done a portrait of Jess who drew a horse as her contribution.

On a side issue: people talk a great deal about dumbing down of school exams. I was talking to Hilary the other week and we are both convinced that the work which gained us top grades for Art A-level 30+ years ago would hardly get us a C at GCSE nowadays so high have the standards become. Carolyn, who studied art and design to degree level, is of much the same mind and says that students are now doing for A-level work at the standard she was working on at college.

Back to yesterday: we went up the hill and met Joe at the ice cream parlour for a healthy lunch of ice-cream and cake. The plan was then for Joe to take Joel and Jess for the roof tour of the cathedral about which he had enquired in the morning. He had specifically mentioned that he would be bringing two 12 year olds, and was given to understand that would be OK, but when they got to the cathedral they were told that there was a lower age limit of 14. Joe feels that he wasn't believed that he was 21 and therefore they were treated as a group of unaccompanied children rather than two children accompanied by an adult.

Since writing this I have received an email from Lincoln Cathedral - the under 14 rule is an insurance requirement and unbreakable. They will make sure that it appears on the website and that all the volunteers know, not just those directly involved.

Anyway, we all went to the Bishop's Palace instead, which is where I was going to take Callum anyway while the others were up on the roof.

Looking at the view over Lincoln we managed lots of very sensible discussion of the changes in that view since St. Hugh's time: not much we agreed in the layout and general roofscape (more tile, less thatch nowadays) of the old city, and the common grazing land is still common grazing land, but huge changes in the distant view where once Sherwood Forest came almost to the city walls and now the industrial city sprawls to the south and west.

On the way home we stopped in Market Rasen to pick up some chips to complete the healthy lunch we had started in the ice-cream parlour.