Top Bird

Well, in my book anyway. In fact in this garden it's a close run thing between the most aggressive of the blue tits, and the male nuthatch. But the robin was an early adopter of 'me' so I'll be loyal to him (or her, not sure there's any way to tell the difference from this distance, is there?)

The playdate yesterday seemed to go off well: the girls went to bed nicely and, after some thumping around, were quiet with the lights off by 10.30pm. So she'll be invited back then! This morning they played happily in Katherine's bedroom (which was a good thing, as the stress of trying to speak french that a frenchperson can understand over breakfast was too much for me). Once she had gone it was nearly time for a rugby filled afternoon. Katherine opted out of the first six nations match (France v Italy) but her commentary on the Scotland v England match was amusing:

"Well they're just all jumping on top of each other now - what's the point of that?"

"Oh oh, he's kicking that man in the head. Why is he doing that mammy?" (Spoken with such an innocent sense of outrage that I had to laugh.)

(On the was it/wasn't it English try/not try) "Well the man with the dark blue arm touched it, but I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Does that mean Scotland get the try?" (It was not a try for England, and clearly at the wrong end for Scotland. And this was a girl who was the star of her school rugby team....)

Conor had his usual internal struggle about who to support. But came down on the losing side. Plus ca change.