Resting

R and I zoomed off to Croome after breakfast, to meet up with L and bring the Boy Wonder home to stay with us for a couple of days. He likes a lot of things about Croome: the café, the shrubbery where he can direct elaborate games of hide-and-seek, the hollow tree into which small children can climb and pretend to be a bear in its den ("A ve'y small, friendly bear," he reassured us), the Temple Greenhouse, and the static aeroplane in a little enclosure between the RAF Museum and the car park - all of which we duly revisited before setting off back home.

I photographed this ruddy darter on an old tree stump near the Temple Greenhouse while the boys were looking at something else. "What have you got?" called R, seeing me folded on the grass in the macro photographer's crouch, as I tried to achieve stem-to-stern focus. "Dragon," I replied. "Where?" said the Boy Wonder, hurtling over. "Where's the dragon?" "Ummm... he just flew away," I said - because of course he just had - "but don't worry - he'll find somewhere else to sit and sunbathe." The Boy scowled and stomped away again. He's finding insects quite frustrating at the moment because they won't let him rush up to look at them, and I'm trying to downplay my own interest when he's around, so that he isn't put off invertebrates for life.

Back at home I let him water my patio pots with a short hosepipe with a spray gun attached, which he very much enjoyed because hosepipes are currently a Favourite Thing. Then he was allowed to put the sprinkler on a couple of my drier flower beds, which was so interesting that it was a good thing I'd insisted on him donning raincoat and wellies first. Then he supervised me cooking up a batch of pesto pasta ("Are there pine nuts in this? Because I don' like pine nuts. I do like meat though. More meat, please!"), before a final round of games, then bath, stories, and bed.