Optimism

Out of all the things I love about this picture what I love most is the instinctive optimism of attempting to catch the water being thrown at him.

This was the end of a series of water battles which Anna started, then violated the rules, then Jackson demanded official retribution, the rules of which he then violated, twice, so this was Anna's final free attack.

As the children have been trained so well and are so very lovely to me when I am setting a bad example being tired and hungover I wasn't required to do more than draw up the rules and take photos.

After much tea and many starchy foodstuffs later I was up to playing a game in the sunshine. We couldn't agree on one so we made one up - Tag Ball. I shall roughly attempt an explanation...as much as anything to try and record it...three people all playing for themselves. Tag (tea-towel) in pocket / waistband. One basketball and one hoop. One person starts with the ball inside the kitchen (all doors open), the other two are at the other end of the garden with one foot in a hoop laid down on the ground. Person inside shouts tag and game starts. Objective is to score a basket - 2 points if you do so without being tagged, 1 if you have been. If you are tagged you stand where it happened and shoot from there. If you score after being tagged you return to the starting positions and the person who did the tagging has then all. If you scored without being tagged you start with the ball. If you don't score the ball stays in play.

It was a lot of fun. We played two rounds of first to 10 and it was all going splendidly until Jackson jumped out of the way of being tagged slightly too exuberantly and kicked Anna's hand causing a sprain to her thumb. It's been iced and taped (thanks YouTube) and seems very painful but hopefully in the morning it will be better. Not least as she has a fun day out planned for tomorrow and Bass Camp next week.

There have been lots of other lovely things too including finishing my book in The Chair in the sunshine and a dog walk with Anna.

Lesley x