Finally back in UK waters after a long and rather queasy journey from St Malo. Sophie is esconced in the TV room, Greg has just bought himself a set of Top Trumps, Kate is sleeping and I'm working my way through a bottomless cup of coffee.

The ferry crossing was already delayed by an hour from the previous run being held up. Then someone drove their caravan into the side of the car deck, and a rival ferry company decided to cancel a sailing to the channel islands resulting in this ship being packed to bursting with caravans and motorhomes. Departure from St Malo, which should have been a respectable 8.10pm, ended up being about quarter past ten, and our ETA in Poole is now about 2 in the morning. The seven hours between then and starting work will have to be evenly divided between sleep and driving the 160 miles between Poole and Leicester. Now you get why I'm pleased Kate was able to get to sleep.

Just grabbing five minutes in an internet cafe (where the kind man installed PuTTY so that I could fix my mail server) to report that we're all having a great time in France. But typing anything on this French keyboard is almost impossible, so for full details you will have to wait until we get home. It's not just that the letters are in the wrong order, but the @ sign is hidden in the most impossible place - so just checking your email seems to require re-wiring of the keyboard.

Touch typing is a real pain right now!

We've made family trips to the Tolpuddle Martyr's Festival since the very first year that they allowed camping - in a recently-mown corn field that was still very spiky with stubble. We, and especially the children, have grown up with Tolpuddle, appreciating the new features each year: hot showers, children's entertainment, music on the Saturday, and more recently, the Friday night, and food now on sale throughout the weekend. That first year we went to Tolpuddle our only hope for Saturday lunch was a pasty bought from the village petrol station.

The petrol station closed the next year, and this year we noticed that a block of flats has been buit where it used to stand. Bad news for the villagers but no bother for us since the caterers at Tolpuddle now serve food from Friday until Monday.

Unison's Health Service Group Executive AGM is over, and we're heading to Trowbridge for the Folk Festival and the start of our holiday.

I don't think I can write a full report of the meeting on my BlackBerry whilst driving down the M6 (I know, I know, I'm a diletante) but I will just comment on the most important debate: that on the question of re-opening year two of the three-year pay deal.

There was a unanimous view that the re-opener clause will almost certainly need to be triggered. There was little or no support for the idea of Unison trying to re-negotiate the first year increase.

Good day: UNISON members in local government, together with their colleagues from Unite, have started their 48 hour strike in support of their demand for an above-inflation pay rise. Picket lines were impressive and positive at various Leicester City Council offices this morning, and even a short speech from me didn't dampen their mood at the lunchtime rally in Leicester's Town Hall Square.

Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo are Zimbabwean union leaders arrested and charged with "spreading falshoods prejudicial to the state" (in other words, being active trade unionists and democrats). Their trial was planned to start yesterday, however the judge and prosecutors did not attend the court, and the trial has now been rescheduled for July 30th.

The TUC organised a protest yesterday, to coincide with the planned start of the trial, and they report: Hundreds of unionists and human rights supporters gathered outside the Zimbabwean Embassy on the Strand in London today to protest at the scheduled trial of Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Top of the list for this afternoon's business - prioritised by delegates at the conference - is motion 63 on the union's relationship with the Labour Party.

The motion calls for a review of the union's political funds, and asks "what do we get for our money"?

The NEC have submitted an amendment to the motion. Although the speeches and the leaflets they have put out argue that we don't need a review because we had one five years ago, their amendment accepts the idea of a review whilst gutting it of any potential impact. The NEC aren't actually speaking against the motion, but by putting up an amendment they are trying to avoid the embarrassment of losing a vote on this subject.

I received the following email the other days. Despite being an elected member of UNISON's Health SGE I didn't receive it from the national office directly, but via a member in another region who forwarded it on to the excellent and useful healthactivists email list.

The email raises a couple of questions. Firstly the fact that the email, the meeting it refers to, and the draft statement presented to that meeting in UNISON's name all seems to have gone on without any oversight or control by the elected lay leadership of the union. I think members of the union will quite reasonably ask why the SGE weren't in control of this process of negotiations with the other NHS unions.

The highlight of the second day of UNISON conference has undoubtedly been the NHS debate. There was an excellent fringe meeting at lunchtime organised by the cross-union activist bulletin health worker. Several of the newly-elected members of the health SGE were there, and they joined in an excellent discussion about learning the lessons from the pay ballot. There was a determined mood to the meeting and positive suggestions for rebuilding our relationships with other NHS unions in support of efforts to get the pay deal re-opened, in line with Dave Prentis' speech and his comments in this morning's papers.