Sorry to be late this week – I've been a bit busy with the case of the climate campaigners who jumped a power station train at Drax and shovelled coal off it for hours.
Indeed, this is the first Northerner to come to you from within the confines of Leeds crown court, which I can recommend for peace, quiet and a friendly cafe, although unlike McDonald's – my second home these days – you have to pay for wifi.
As I'm in Leeds, I've dipped into the Yorkshire Evening Post and was cheered to see the results of a long campaign by some slightly doddery locals, including myself and my 90-year-old mother-in-law.
At last we've got some new seats in the city centre which, in this week's weather, has resembled Blackpool beach, only without any sea.
Young people have no difficulty draping themselves over bits of stonework or picnicking on our many urban lawns but, as you get older, it's nice to have something a bit more bottom-shaped.
Respect, then, to Leeds city council which has spent no less than £1.3m on a set of distinguished carved benches and associated repaving in Albion Place, designed to reflect the Georgian architecture of the street.
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Now a prophesy from the Louth Leader about the exciting goings-on at Wimbledon. "Murray will win," says local professional tennis coach Ed Allinson. He knows this because they played as lads and Murray always beat him.
Allinson managed to conquer Andy's younger brother, Jamie, though, once – and the resulting tips are being passed on to players of all ages at the new Louth Tennis United club in Charles Street.
Judging by the courts round here, at Kirkstall and in the Hollies park on the way to Adel, Wimbledon fever is universal, although kids have got a different challenge in South Shields.
According to reporter Leah Strug, of the Shields Gazette, more than 2,000 of them are descending on the town's beach to enter the annual north-east sandcastle challenge.
It's not only the children. The enormous event also enlists architects, builders and designers to give a hand (ie, in many cases I fear, take over the whole project and make it postmodern).
Let's hope the sun stays out for them and that even the North Sea turns a little bit warm. Remember that it will come in, though, however mighty your sandy walls.
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Further down the coast, the mini-youth are also being energised to become useful citizens via the medium of Scarborough's sponsored Tots Toddle. 'Lots of tots,' the Scarborough Evening News says poetically, have just teetered through Peasholm Park to raise money for Barnardo's.
In an age when everyone seems to be running marathons or cycling through Peru for charity, this is inevitable – although if I was a tot at Buttercups nursery in Scarborough, I'd try to dodge out of the crocodile and take the chairlift.
It's one of the cosiest in Britain, swinging on its cables so low over Peasholm that you can almost reach down, remove ice cream cones from other tots, and then swoop away.
On the beach at Crosby, the other side of the north, Antony Gormley's famous Iron Men have had a cheerful makeover in the lovely weather.
It may not be quite appropriate to dress up smartly in a heatwave, but that's what happened this week in an almost military operation.
Supporters of the Crosby Housing Association checked the tide tables and then took 40 different fashion outfits down to clothe the men, who rise from the sand where the waves break as the tide rises and falls.
Suits, gowns and – of course – beachware were fitted, photographed and filmed before the statues were left naked again, apart from 40 blue balloons, by 7.30am.
The event was a celebration of the housing association's 40th birthday, according to the Crosby Herald, and had all the temporary, fleeting charm of a pavement painting.
It will survive for posterity, however, via a community film-making project which gets its premiere at the Crosby Plaza cinema in September.
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Sauntering down south to Port Sunlight, a suitable destination this week, what do we find? The Wirral News has been attending another mass sandcastle-building event.
This time, the local youth clubs have been given buckets and spades, their leaders triumphantly telling the paper: "It's shown that it isn't uncool to get involved."
Absolutely. Sandcastle building is super-cool and, as Mike Holbrook, of Wirral youth services, correctly points out, it also doesn't cost a hard-earned bean.
The deputy mayor of the Wirral, Alan Jennings, has been along to add to the joy, and praised "the youth of today for bringing a smile to people's faces". Isn't that dandy, considering what grumps in the local media usually have to say about the young?
I suppose we had better go inland now, because the sun is shining here as well. What is the Rochdale Observer observing? Well, there's an inaugural walk along the new Town Trail which takes in Rochdale's "finest architecture and hidden gems".
These are considerable, because the walk is five miles long – but even the current heatwave hasn't banished traditional Lancashire pessimism. Bring sturdy shoes and waterproofs, say the organisers, dourly, and their tone is reflected elsewhere in the paper's phew-what-a-sizzler coverage.
The main piece describes local medical preparations for "large numbers of heatwave victims as temperatures are expected to soar this week".
Picture them, emerging from their usually fog-shrouded, rainswept Lancashire homes, staring up at a huge yellow thing in the sky and collapsing from shock.
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Martin Wainwright recommends: This weekend's must is the Royal Entomological Society's new Insect Day in York on Saturday.
Celebrate the 4th of July with a talk on Wonderful Wasps, or browse the stalls of the National Bee Unit and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
York is full of other things to do, from the train museum to local gardens open under the National Gardens Trust scheme. And if you can't make the bugfest, why not stay at home and browse through my moths blog.
Lastly, a leap to Cleethorpes, where hopes are high of a rebuilding scheme on the burnt-out remains of the Leaking Boot.
The pub was a local landmark, and is one to add to any collection of curious names. It honours a sentimental statue of a boy holding up a wellington boot with a hole in it, which was given to Cleethorpes by a Swedish immigrant who founded a shipping business.
Like one of those teddies people take on holiday all over the world and photograph in front of landmarks, the little chap has been copied everywhere from Italy to Texas, each time with a different story about who he is and why his boot leaks.
Take in a sample here.
