Wow! What a week. Sometimes the editorial team at The Weekly are left struggling to find something to write about. This week, it’s been hard to decide what to leave out. The realism that football is not coming home? The remarkable and uplifting rescue of the twelve boys and their coach from the caves in Thailand? Donald Trump’s first visit to the UK as American President? Roger Federer’s surprise exit from Wimbledon? The continuing heatwave? Ronaldo’s £99m move from Real Madrid to Juventus? The amazing RAF flypast over London? And we haven’t even started dipping our toes into the murky, political pond. This week, we’ve seen Boris and David Davis resign and Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Raab be reassigned new roles. And, as for Brexit discussions, we continue to struggle to keep up. Yes the long-awaited blueprint for the UK’s relations with the EU was published on Thursday, but given the fall-out we’ve seen since the plan was ‘agreed’ last Friday, it’s safe to assume the ‘B-word’ will provide plenty more material for us to use in any quieter weeks over the coming few months.

You can tell it’s the summer, can’t you? The weather remains excellent. The trains are quieter than normal but still being regularly delayed by melting tracks! And families are starting to pack their bucket and spades for their seaside holidays. But despite the inevitable summer lull, the UK property market continues to tick along. Whilst a lack of suitable stock remains an acute issue, occupational and investment transactions are still taking place up and down the land. Only this week we’ve seen Zara’s founder reportedly agree terms to buy the Aldelphi building in London for a cool £600m (4%), London Metric swap an Odeon cinema in Warrington for a Royal Mail let shed in Milton Keynes and Amazon and WeWork enter discussions for an office letting of 90,000 sq. ft. in Manchester. Investor demand remains strong for the limited prime assets available with strong and secure income streams, as well as for clear value-add opportunities. The one sector where investor demand is waning, however, is retail. It probably won't come as a huge surprise, but retail yields are now directly suffering from the recent turmoil in the occupational market. In their July Investment Yield Report which was released on Wednesday, CBRE moved out all their retail yields by at least 25 basis points. Only the very best shopping centres survived unscathed. Dare we suggest this may be the start of something bigger?

With most schools breaking up by the end of this coming week, parents will be facing the challenge of not only how they are going entertain their children for the next six weeks, but more immediately, what should they get their kids' teachers to thank them for all their hard work over the last academic year. Whilst a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine would seem an easy, if not an inspired choice, a recent survey by Mumsnet has revealed how British teachers have been presented with everything from a bag of potatoes, a stolen car radio in a carrier bag and a tube of lubricating jelly, to a half-opened bottle of wine. A third of the teachers polled even said that they had received jewellery which they were sure had been stolen for them! For any Weekly readers looking for some guidance, the poll revealed that the gifts most teachers hoped to receive were handmade gifts (seriously?), a personal note or card from the child (instead of money, wine or chocolate?) or a voucher from the whole class (much more like it!). Our bottom-line advice though is not to worry about it. Apparently half of all unwanted gifts end up at a charity shop, whilst a third of teachers re-gift presents to someone else anyway! How ungrateful!