Around September last year, we were struggling to get our kids to read regularly.

We’d tell them to read every day but without us checking up, the reading was patchy.

We had a simple idea.

Personal admission >> I find it challenging to carve out enough time to read everything that I want to stay current. Despite my best intentions to read for an hour a day, I find it pretty hard to do that.

When my kids are firing questions at me and all speaking at the same time, here's what I say to them.

"I can do one thing well or two things badly. You choose."

I was standing on the rugby pitch touchline yesterday with a friend talking about the past week as we watched our sons playing a match.

The week had been successful for both of us.

It's been a busy few weeks of media activity.

Caspar and the family were featured twice in the Saturday Times, and then more recently on ITV News.

Your team. In business, at home, in sport, on an adventure. Does it click and you are flying along. Or does it feel hard, crunchy and that something isn’t working?

As a family team, we’ve always found the first few days back at sea to be the hardest. Adjusting back to the “at sea” environment, changing sleep patterns to fit into a watch system, being back together in a small space and for Nichola handling sea sickness.

I think the technical term is a pea souper. The fog surrounding Aretha is so thick you can barely see 30 metres ahead of you. The salty air and the moisture fills your nose as you strain your eyes scanning all around

The only sounds are the waves lapping against the side of the hull and occasional distant hum of an outboard motor. The hatches are open and the lightest of breezes fills Aretha with the scent of the nearby pine trees. Jani and Pete are both on deck reading whilst I sit at the saloon table writing.

Four men are sitting in the cockpit. One man declares if he catches another fish he will be completely unbearable. Another man dryly comments that he already is unbearable. The undulating seas off the Oregon coast are filled with laughter from all four.