Much hotter than we expected, despite the wind and the chilly morning, a long walk in Thorndon Park left us wishing we’d left our coats at home. A lively late summer treat, eating blackberries from the hedgerow as we went and dodging the cows (and bulls) sharing the fields.

It’s the best part of a year since we last walked in the park which you realise, on a beautiful day like this, is far too long.

Emilie, Kathryn and Luke came down to Essex for the day. It seems they weren’t put off by last year’s roller disco. So we took them to Southend for a walk along the world’s longest pleasure pier (a mike and a third and frequently burned down or crashed into by tankers), proper seaside fish and chips and, of course, bingo.

The bingo was a bit embarrassing on account of the fact that I won the first two games after we sat down, Kathryn won the fifth and I won the sixth. We claimed our prize – Jumping Monkeys – and made a swift exit before the regulars came for us with pitchforks.

Southend was pretty manic, as always and we just missed getting drenched by a huge shower, but we had loads of fun, and stopped off in Old Leigh for a quiet walk in the setting sun before we all headed home. In all, utterly lovely.

Hurry up and sort yourself out, MGM, or this could be the future of Bond.

Well, that was all rather fun. Neither of us had been to the ballet before, so when dad offered tickets we jumped at it. In fairness we were supposed to be watching it at the Opera Garnier in Paris, which is why we went to France back in May. That didn’t happen – no tickets.

Anyhow, it gave us a chance to see inside the Royal Opera House, which we’ve walked past so many times but never entered. It’s quite fab, and the view of the plaza from the terrace of the Ampitheatre Bar is the best view of Covent Garden going.

…and the view of the champagne bar downstairs isn’t so tatty, either. Good job we wore our smarts, not that we spent much time down there.

So, the ballet. We didn’t really know what to expect, which might have been a good thing, as we went with open minds.

It was the Bolshoi doing Don Quixote, so a pretty high standard for your first experience, and it didn’t disappoint. Well, not us, anyway, but dad had seen better (he’s seen a lot) and to be honest we could see where he was coming from when he said that the end of it would have been done better if they’d headed back to the village for the wedding scene.

There’s not a great deal of story to Don Quixote, and it seems to be a bit of an excuse for showing off how good a dancer you are – kind of like Cirque du Soliel on tip-toes – but that makes it all the more impressive. Random fact: when they pirouette on the tips of their shoes their big toes feel the force of 2 tonnes… and they did a lot of pirouetting.

Even if it weren’t for the ballet, the Opera House alone would be a good enough reason to visit. It’s truly beautiful building, with parts dating back to the 1700s. It’s also a lot bigger than you’d expect. The stage itself is fairly conservative (and only around a third the size of its rival in Paris) but the tiers and boxes seat over 2200 people, and everyone gets a good view.

Would we go again? Most certainly. We even looked up what was on at the Theatre Royal in Norwich last night…