Criorhina ranunculi

On the way home from school this morning, the Boy Wonder began talking about medicines for some reason, but after he told me with great relish how sweet Calpol is, I switched the discussion to the importance of only taking medicines when you really need them, and never taking too much. Sometimes, I warned, when people take too much medicine they have to go to hospital and the doctors put a tube into their tummy and use a pump to get all the medicine back out before it can get into their blood and make them sick. 

"I did that yesterday," said the Boy sadly. "Did you?" "Yes. It happened when I were a grown-up. I drank too much medicine, and I had to go to hospital and they put a tube in my tummy and pumped the medicine out. It stayed in the pump though - it didn't come out on the floor." "Gosh," I said. "Yes. But I were a grown-up when that happened. I'm not going to grow up any more now." "Aren't you?" "No. I'm going to just stay how old I am now." "Do you like being three?" "Yes," he said. "I do." "Oh good," I said. "I like you being three, too. But if you did decide to get older, and you got to be four, I'd like you then as well." After considering this, he said, "When I'm as old as you, will you still like me then too?" "Darling, I'm sorry to tell you," I said, "that by the time you're as old as me, I'll be dead." He frowned, then shot a look towards the driver. "What about Granddad?" Deciding that one harsh fact per visit was enough, I chose to misinterpret the question, and replied, "By the time you're as old as Granddadd, you'll probably have grown-up children and grandchildren of your own." He thought about this for a couple of seconds, and then said, "When we get home, can I have a spicy chocolate biscuit?"

Earlier, before setting off on the school run, we'd had a rather charming encounter with the Baby Brother, who was sitting in his bouncy chair when we arrived at the house, grumbling quietly but looking as though he was building up to a full-on strop. I sat on the carpet in front of him and began reciting rhymes - which was quite interesting - and then singing nursery rhymes, which elicited the smallest of smiles. "Tough audience," I said to R when he entered the room with a couple of mugs of tea, and R replied "Maybe we should try the old favourite." So we sang Show Me the Way to Go Home in 2-part harmony, and he smiled and waved his arms and legs. "Again?" I asked, and B minor wriggled a bit, so we did it again, with the same result. We were still singing, and he was still smiling, waving and kicking, when L appeared, and told us that B major has been singing the same song to him recently. At lunch time I complimented the Boy on teaching his Brother our song, but he seemed unimpressed - but then, he was working on extracting a third spicy chocolate biscuit from me at the time.

I took this photo of a Something on one of the cherry trees in the park after lunch, even though I only had the nifty fifty lens on the R7, and it was quite a way above me and heading in the wrong direction, because it looked like a black bumblebee and I wanted to identify it. As soon as I looked at the shot in-camera though, I could see that it was a hoverfly, and knew it was something I'd never photographed before. "Criorhina ranunculi" said Obsidentify, and the Hoverfly Recording Scheme chaps on Facebook have now agreed, and accepted the record. Any day with a new species is a good day in my book, which is why I'm posting a photo of which I'm otherwise far from proud. There's more about Criorhina ranunculi here, if you're interested.