Sprouting

I was going to give you a shot of the plum blossom against the glorious blue sky, taken as I tried to cool down with a ginger beer after some hard digging in the midday sun, but instead here's a quiz:

What is this flower? TallGirl spotted it yesterday and I suggested she looked it up in her wild flower book as I'd never seen it before, though I knew it vaguely reminded me of something.

Today I discovered what it is. Answers on a postcard please to the usual comments section.

The kids had their super-fancy meal in a restaurant with the school today, so this morning was a whirl of ironing, necklace finding, tie tying and shoe polishing (ok, I made the last one up, but there was some wiping of mud off shoes). TallGirl looked impossibly elegant, and CarbBoy looked passably clean.

My day was spent being neither elegant nor clean - digging clay soil that is very wet is never going to be a tidy business. But now the front bed that held veg last summer has a backbone of perennials and bulbs to see us through this summer.

The kids had a great time at their restaurant, which does seem to have been genuinely fancy and the kids really had to behave well as there were other paying diners in the room. The point of the trip was to show them fine dining, and they seem to have all performed well. CarbBoy's allergies meant he couldn't have all the food, but they both seemed to enjoy what they had, and they were all rewarded with an hour in a playpark in all their finery.

After school, and indeed after TallGirl's late basketball training, it was movie time. I had promised TallGirl chilli con carne a while ago, so we had that while CarbBoy (who can't eat beef) had pizza. His favourite pizza. Which is tiresome as his favourite pizza is a pepperoni thin crust from the supermarket... with all the pepperoni and the tiny bits of pepper removed. I have tried buying him just a cheese pizza, but he can somehow spot the difference between a pizza with cheese and tomato, and a pizza with cheese and tomato but no pepperoni. Sigh.

Mr B's back tomorrow, and we have a complicated logistical day of present buying, parties, basketball and an evening out in Castres. (Which, yes, does mean that I will be blipping something slightly rubbish while drunk. Plus ça change...)