Synchronicity

It's just two days since I posted photos of a red mason bee on Geranium phaeum - a plant I'd never seen before in my life - and a male blue mason bee, which is a species I see quite infrequently. Today, seventy miles away in a Cardiff park, I spotted a large clump of Geranium phaeum, and discovered on closer investigation that one of the pollinators browsing around it was a blue mason bee. I'm neither superstitious nor especially fey, and I know that it would be statistically more surprising if coincidences didn't happen than that they do. Nonetheless, this does feel like an unusually neat piece of synchronicity, and pleasing enough for me to inflict a second geranium phaeum and a second blue mason bee on you this evening.

Our day with the Boy Wonder was full of fun and games, but each time we see him now, R and I have to employ new strategies for avoiding conflict. This is as much for his benefit as ours, because he hates being at odds with us, but he has ferocious willpower and a growing need to assert his independence, with no strategies of his own as yet to temper them. I'm regularly reminded of some of his mother's antics as a small child, and of the day she said to me, in withering tones, "I'm four years old. I can look after myself." Blocks and chips, I'm thinking, and apples and trees: by the time this one is four years old, he'll probably be running the country.

My favourite Boy moment of the day also happened in the park. B, standing on top of one of the climbing frames, watched with interest as a family tied their dog to the fence by its lead before coming into the playground. Looking at the unhappy animal, B (who's mildly obsessed with electrical equipment at the moment) said approvingly, "He's plugged in now!" - causing R almost to choke on the imaginary chocolate biscuit he was eating at the time.