This will hurt me...

Not a word of a lie: Henry wrote every single letter himself.

Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Snow has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. See how I have formed these snowflakes into a denser material. Snowfall tends to form within regions of upward motion of air around low-pressure systems. As we are atop Mount Wellington, it is highly probable that this snow has been formed through an upslope flow of warmer air (containing water evaporation from the ocean) that has been maximised within the windward sides of the terrain at elevation, which has then hit the far colder atmosphere at altitude. Are you following?

We're at that wonderful point of a young man’s life when the overwhelming desire to be able to read and write begins to become all-consuming. Thankfully, Henry has thrown himself into the task with great enthusiasm and vigour!

Learning to surf. Clifton Beach, December 2010. We’ve had a bit of a slow reading period over Christmas and the New Year (if you don’t count kids’ books). Actually, I enjoyed the kids’ books somewhat more than one of the novels I just finished. For the record, the new Charlie and Lola book Henry and Ezra got for Christmas – Slightly Invisible – is a tour de force . It is an absolutely new and completely original book from the mind of Lauren Child. Without wanting to give too much away, Charlie and his gravelly-voiced East Ender chum Marv are in search of strange and tricky creatures. Of course, they would prefer to do this without little sister Lola bothering and interrupting. Luckily, Lola knows exactly how to catch strange and tricky creatures and enlists a little bit of help from her (slightly) invisible friend, Soren Lorensen, and the pulsating narrative goes from here…. Equal parts Dostoyevsky and Evelyn Waugh, the forever delightful Charlie and Lola explore the blurred bounda...

Henry now is able to write his own name. I think that it is a magnificent achievement. Three cheers for Henry!

Whenever Ez goes to the local museum, he indulges one of his real enthusiasms: that for decapod crustaceans of all shapes and sizes. He loves crabs. Adores them. Cyclograpsus granulosus , Paragrapsus quadridentatus , Dittosa laevis , Mictyris platycheles , Pilumnus fissifrons and his absolutely , completely , utterly , UNQUESTIONABLY favourite of all, the good ol' Ovalipes australiensis !

Ezra is learning to eat without help. He's getting there. Slowly. As an interesting point of comparison, here is Henry coming to grips with yoghurt way back in February '08 (which would make him a few months older in that photo than Ez is now).

Look! Hairy Henry is trying to explain the possibility of life on Mars to Ezra. If it were me, I'd just give him a copy of Hunky Dory , some eyeliner and spandex pants and be done with it!

The US are celebrating National Grammar Day today, and I'm sure that the parties will be numerous and exciting. Having spent seven tortuous years marking thousands of undergraduate essays at UTas, the dire state of proper English is something far dearer to my heart than the odd murdered whale or a smidgen of global warming ! But now you can help . Visit the website for more info. The good folks at Mental Floss are doing their bit , encouraging readers to make personal National Grammar Day resolutions , applying the logic that innumerable micro actions yield impressive macro results. After thinking long and hard about it (fnarr, fnarr), my own personal resolution will be to pay more attention to the compounded hyphen. I know, I know, it's a big call, but we all have to do our bit. Thus from this day forth, I vow to use a hyphen when joining two or more words to serve as a single adjective before a noun. However (and this is the tricky part), when compound modifiers come afte...

Here are some of the more interesting things that I learned over the past year, with thanks to the BBC News Magazine ! [Click on the link to read more] Adding milk to tea negates the health-giving effects of a hot cup. Dishcloths can be purged of 99 percent of their bacteria from just two minutes in a microwave. About half of China's population can’t speak the national language, Mandarin. There are approximately 30,000 wild parakeets currently living in London. You can get mobile phone coverage from the summit of Mount Everest. As part of their performance reviews, female civil servants in India are questioned about their menstrual cycle. The true secret to happiness is learning to accept misery. Until the late 1990s, the nuclear warheads of the Royal Air Force could be activated using a easily obtained bicycle lock key. Cats can be police constables in the UK. Chickens can be diagnosed with depression. In Iceland, 96% of women go on to some form of higher education. There have bee...