Camouflage

Having cleaned the alloys of R's car yesterday evening, the Boy Wonder was desperate to wash the rest of it. R said (truthfully) that there wasn't time before bed, but promised that if B still wanted to do it this morning, they would wash the car together after breakfast. Which is what I call taking one for the team.

This morning the Boy very much did still want to do it, but some negotiation was required about appropriate clothing. R's suggestion was yesterday's grubby shorts and t-shirt, but B stated quite forcefully that wearing nothing would be much better... well, nothing except wellies... and socks, of course... and maybe pants... "Fine," I said. "Pants and socks and wellies. Do you want to pop outside now, and just check the temperature?" At which point it turned out that Granddad's suggestion had some merit after all, and shorts and t-shirt were added to the ensemble. Frankly though, a dry suit would have been better, because by the time they'd cleaned the entire car he was soaked to the skin, and despite all the effort he'd put into the scrubbing, and the number of times he'd had to scramble on and off a hop-up step, he was shivering with cold. But he was still very pleased with himself, and some dry clothing, an hour on the sofa in the snug watching cartoons with R, and the casual consumption of two thirds of the pack of bacon I cooked up for elevenses, had him fully restored.

This afternoon we went over to Tredegar, the National Trust property at Newport, to hand the Boy back to his mother. R drove my car and I sat in the back with B, who's become very interested in maps and wanted to track our journey on my phone. As we went down the motorway he pointed out how much easier it would be if we had a flying car, because then we could just go zoom from one place to another, without having to spend so much time on the boring road. We had quite a discussion about the possible advantages and disadvantages of this idea - in particular what a hard job it would be for the Air Traffic Control people to keep all the flying cars safely out of each other's way - but he was very taken with the notion that flying cars might have become a reality by the time he's grown up.

Our interesting journey then went awry, when the satnav routed us off the M4 to avoid a lengthening tailback, and we ended up on a Magical Mystery Tour around the outskirts of Newport. We were finally delivered - already ten minutes past the arrival time we'd agreed with L - to the back of the estate, but separated from it by a closed metal gate, on a narrow residential lane with nowhere we could reasonably park. R, who hates being late, was getting more and more stressed, I was becoming increasingly irritable that my helpful suggestions were falling on stony ears, and the emotional temperature in the car was soaring, when suddenly a little voice to my left observed conversationally, "This is when it would be really useful to have a flying car."

R and I both burst out laughing, peace was restored, I re-mapped to the National Trust car park, and five minutes later we turned in and found L calmly sitting waiting for us in the shade of a tree. She was very amused to hear about the intervention her son had just made, and laughed even more heartily when I told her about yesterday's chocolate biscuit incident, and his reaction to being shouted at. "I'm proud of him," she said. "I've known plenty of adults who aren't as skilled as that at expressing their feelings." Come to think of it, so have I.

This, should you be wondering, is a male Red-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius), almost perfectly camouflaged against the gaillardia I recently added to my patio planting. If you compare him with a male Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum), you'll see that although they have essentially the same colouring they're distinctly different. The Early Bumblebee is a bit untidy, with quite shaggy hair and a relatively small red tail. This little chap is neater, with sharper demarcations between his coloured bands, and he has more red on his abdomen, less yellow around the thoracic collar, none at all on the abdomen, and a very obvious bright yellow moustache. I love them both, but if I had to choose... No. Luckily, I don't have to choose - so I won't.