1. We're waiting for the train to take us swimming, and after that we're having lunch with Godfather Tim. It was a scramble to leave the house this morning, because it's raining (everything takes twice as long when it rains), and I haven't checked my messages yet. There are two -- one to say that swimming school is cancelled; the other to say that Godfather Tim is cancelled as well. I think about getting a refund on our train ticket and going home -- but then I think about a rainy day stuck inside; and I've been telling Alec all morning that we're going swimming. So we go anyway -- it's free swimming, and Alec has an absolute ball splashing around among the pre-schoolers.
2. When we come out of the pool, the rain (it was the drizzly kind that gets in everywhere) has stopped. The air is sharp, clean and very still (apart from the odd drop falling out of the trees into the river). The trees are vividly green; and the river is so clear we can see the fish.
3. The little tree in our front garden has had aphids on the new shoots for a week or so. I was glad to see two ladybirds (one red on black, one black on red) moving among the leaves today. Also a yellow and black striped wasp, and an unreal jaggy little beetle with an acid orange flash on its back.
