Some autumn beauty

It has been a warm autumn so far and so I was not surprised to see these lovely croci popping up amongst the fallen leaves. I needed some flowers today to cheer me up - I am missing both Gavin and Luke, and it is a quiet weekend at home with only Adam and Thomas. No special plans for the weekend, the boys are catching up on homework and I am pottering about.

Adam loved his open day visit to Cambridge and said it was well worth the visit as he found out so much about the application process and the college. The only problem is that he is now really desperate to get in there...we will see what happens. He met another lad there who achieved an average of 98% in his AS exams* (which is really difficult to get on the new A level system) and has had to teach himself quite a bit of the syllabus, as his school does not have teachers who are up to preparing an Oxbridge candidate. He has no friends to talk to about his subjects as most of the kids in his school drink and smoke weed and are not interested in studying - yet this boy has managed to pull himself above that and has achieved such good results so far - I really hope he gets an offer, he deserves to get one.

* Cambridge is the only university in the country that gets to see actual percentage marks (the others rely on grades), and the application is all about marks - if you don't get an average mark from all your subjects of about 93% your chances of getting an offer are minimal. So you really are competing with the best of the best, which makes it so hard to get a place there.