Last of the summer nectar

Richard was up at five, to drive over to Birkenhead for the Belfast ferry. It's his sister Diana's 75th birthday this week, and he'll be keeping her company for a few days. She doesn't want any kind of big 'do', but company will be welcome. 
I picked Eben up from school in the afternoon as usual, on a Wednesday, and took him for his swimming lesson. He loves these lessons, and the sense of achievement that comes with steady progress. It's great to see him swimming around confidently now, steadily getting stronger and more accurate with his strokes. His favourite thing, just now, is doing a 'pencil jump' into the water, touching the bottom and shooting back up. We have nice conversations about how it feels to glide through the water.
The garden still has quite a few flowering plants in it: fuchsias, St John's Wort, abelia, perennial wallflower, a second flush of blooms on the choisya. Today there were plenty of bees taking full advantage of these, sometimes burying themselves right inside the fuchsia blooms in particular.  I liked this take-off shot, the bee outlined against the light. There's an extra with a bit more of the bee visible.