Not a flower

You could have had a slightly blurry twilit anemone, but here instead is what my day was really about - given I had all of 10 minutes in the garden all day.

More painting, yawn. With a start made at the end of the day on this room, the upstairs hall which will one day be a library. Hopefully in a week or so it will be a white room with one small bookshelves and a bunch of boxes in a corner hidden behind an attractive screen... But given how many layers of stuff are falling off the walls when I approach them with paint it could take a little longer.

The only thing of note today is that the kids missed swimming because we got them back to school too late after lunch. Actually we were 15 minutes early compared with the time the teacher had marked in their books as being the time the bus left... so she had to concede that she was wrong. Shame for them to miss the swimming, though perhaps just as well given that the reason we were late was that Conor had an asthma attack when we were ready to go. Poor lad. Pollen and lawn-cutting seasons should not be allowed to coincide. Must remember that the way I sorted him out was to sit him down and talk very quietly about how asthma / air tubes / allergies work - and he had to stop coughing to be able to hear me.

Scorching hot day today, though a bit muggy. Lovely 10 minutes in the garden after dinner sipping a slightly rough local red wine and trying with Mr B to find the grasshopper that was the source of very loud song. (We failed.) Also a slightly frustrating conversation with a Virgin mobile chap who is very keen to give me a cheaper deal on my mobile... but refused to accept that if you don't speak French very well you might be nervous about signing up on the phone without anything in writing. Keen as I am to half my monthly bill, I'm not accepting bully tactics so will trot along to my local Orange shop and see what they can do instead. This evening has mostly been spent drafting a birthday party invite for Katherine. Much trickier than it sounds. Much research has been done on whether ramener is the right verb to use for me bringing all the kids back from school with me. (I'm hesitant because last time I offered to bring someone's kid home Katherine told me later I'd offered to harvest their kid. Which is not quite the same.)