In the garden

We packed up early and settled in at Diana's (R's sister).  Diana had her great grandson Arlo (5) staying overnight last night, so we spent some happy times with him this morning.

Arlo and I went into the garden to look at the butterflies on the buddleia bushes.  Arlo has some difficulties with speech, as I think I blipped last week.  It's very indistinct, and sounds like 'p', 'f', 't' and 'g' seem particularly difficult for him; either they aren't articulated at all, or they come out more like a 'h' sound.  We are hoping that the speech therapist he's currently seeing will be able to help him with it all.  For the moment, it's as if most of his words are blurred.

On the other hand, Arlo has great reserves of patience and good humour.  He carefully asked me to keep quiet around the butterflies, so that we wouldn't scare them away.  After watching me with the camera for a few minutes, he asked if he could take a photo 'by myself'.  So I handed it over, keeping a loose hold on the strap in case of any difficulties.  I needn't have worried.  He paid close attention to the screen display, and remembered my explanations about where the shutter button was.  This is a lad who's already handy with a tablet, so he was entirely relaxed with this new piece of kit.

The image here is one of mine: Arlo's going to need to practise a bit to keep a steady hand. But he's off to a good start. Meanwhile, he's gone off to football training this afternoon. 

I scanned through the Guardian this morning too, alighting on this piece about Covid by the wonderful Laura Spinney:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/27/us-report-covid-origins-pandemic-virus-covid

It's short, but so completely to the point: we need to pay attention to the long-term environmental issues that make pandemics more likely - such as wildlife habitat destruction - rather than fighting over what the origins of Covid-19 may or may not have been.