Yaaayyy! Spring has arrived finally! The sun is shining, the temperature has broken the double figure mark and Boston is waking up after its winter hibernation. It has been the strangest, but nicest atmosphere, a feeling I don't recollect experiencing coming out of a UK winter. It's as if everything and everyone is waking up. The bulbs are in leaf, the grass is starting to turn green again after the snow and ice damage, the big winter coats, hats and snow boots have disappeared and everyone looks happy instead of cold with a pinched, long suffering expression on their face. I have even been able to open the windows and get some air in the apartment. Sorry if I sound effusive but it's so lovely to be outdoors now!

Anyway, things have moved on again since my last entry. Barry is en route currently between Sweden and Paris, half way through his grand tour of Europe. He flew out of Boston the evening of Sunday March 30th to London, where he had a meeting at the Health Foundation (the organisation sponsoring him and the other UK Fellows) before heading up to Sheffield. The Fellows all then flew to somewhere in Sweden which I can't spell for a few days to visit some hospitals and health institutes. They spent the weekend sightseeing in Stockholm before flying to Paris today for a four-day forum. They will then return to London and Barry returns to Boston next Saturday night.

Before he left we had Rachel's first basketball tournament with her club, the Mass Commanders. The club sent two 3/4/5th grade teams to the tournament, the Mass Commanders Elite and the Mass Commanders Blue. Rachel is on the Blue team, which is the development team. The tournament was in Providence, Rhode Island, an hour and a quarter's drive away, with the first match on Saturday at 8am. It meant a 5.30am wake up call so we could leave by soon after 6am to get there in time for a warm up and pre game chat with the coach. Rachel got up saying she felt sick which we largely ignored as she quite frequently feels sick when she has to get up very early. However, she proved us wrong in ignoring her by vomiting copiously in the car half way to Providence. Thankfully, she managed to aim into the blanket on her lap so the car suffered no collateral damage but it was an unpleasant experience for all of us! We assumed it was a combination of travel sickness and the early morning, but with hindsight we think she probably had a slight stomach bug as she was drained and listless all day and was able to eat very little

Unfortunately, the early start had a big impact on the girls and Rachel's team lost their first match heavily. Their second match later that morning was a slightly closer affair but still a loss. The Elite team suffered a similar fate in their two matches. I think the level of play was a shock to the girls, most of whom only had experience of playing in the local Brookline league. Both teams lost their final match on Sunday morning too, although Rachel's team played much better - they were probably much less tired with a later start on the Sunday. One of the parents had some interesting thoughts. He proclaimed that our girls were always going to be the underdogs as it was "academic, intellectual Brookline versus towns which live for sport". He added that he realised how important sport was to some parents as a means for getting their child a college scholarship when a parent from another team advised him to start videotaping his daughter playing as "colleges were interested in progression of talent as well as the talent itself". Food for thought. Thank goodness this doesn't happen in the UK.

The pre-game talk

Time out

Not going too well, Dad

Come on girls, we can do this!

Oh dear ...

But I'm still having fun!

Another time out

About to throw the ball in from the back line

Taking a penalty shot

Yes, it went in!

The Mass Commanders Blue team. Coach Keith is on the right at the back, with asst Coach John on the left.

So, this first tournament was one to put down to experience and to move on from. It enabled us to take a family trip to Providence though, which is the capital city of Rhode Island and supposedly very attractive. We had planned to spend Saturday afternoon lunching in and exploring Providence but the rain put an end to that. Instead, we stopped for lunch at a very nice but characterless roadside Italian chain restaurant and drove around Providence for half an hour to get a feel for it. It was very attractive and would have been lovely to have had the opportunity to stroll around. We drove through the Brown University district (one of the Ivy League colleges and where actress Emma Watson is or has just finished studying) and passed the State House, which Rachel said looked very similar to the Capitol Building in Washington DC (I know what she means). After we headed home Rachel went to one of the many many birthday parties she is being invited to. After Sunday's matches the girls and I left Barry to pack for his trip while we went to the cinema to watch Divergent, the latest teen film sensation. It was very good and both girls are now avidly reading the books the film (and presumably the sequels to follow) is based on.

It was my birthday on Tuesday last week. With Barry away it was up to the girls to make a fuss of me. Rachel did a great job of wrapping Barry's presents, so thank you Rachel. I had some lovely Body Shop toiletries from the girls and a book which I had spotted in the local book shop and two very amusing dog books from Barry - one a series of photographs of dogs mid-shake and the other a collection of poems written by dogs. Definitely books to browse to cheer you up.

I spent the following two days cleaning and tidying the apartment ready for our landlady to visit on Friday. She lives in Georgia but was in Boston for a few days so took the opportunity to drop in to meet us (well, me) and to show a prospective tenant around. Thankfully, she was impressed with the state of the apartment. Annoyingly, there are more tenants who will need to be shown round in the coming week so the whole process of cleaning and tidying will start again after the usual weekend destruction.

The second basketball tournament, this weekend just gone, was in Hanover, a town about 45 minutes to an hour's drive south of Boston. The family of Ilana, one of Rachel's team mates, drove her down on Saturday and they were all very excited when the Blues won their first game, narrowly beating one of the teams which had beaten them convincingly the previous week. They lost their second game against a team which was clearly a lot better than the rest of the teams in the competition but still played well and Rachel scored her team's only basket. According to her coach, she played "amazingly"! Rachel wasn't going to play on Sunday as she had her friend Sydney's birthday party in the afternoon which she didn't want to miss but she changed her mind when the coach pointed out that if they won their remaining match on Sunday morning their team would be in the play off final. Ilana's family took her with them again and apparently they were unlucky to lose 11-8, again against a team which had smashed them the previous week. Ilana's family then went well beyond the call of duty and drove Rachel to Sydney's birthday party for the afternoon! Anyway, Coach Keith is delighted with the girls and the only way is up!