My Real Life

I had to send bear in to school today even though he wasn't really well.  One cheek was absolutely scarlet and he was significantly under the weather.  However he wasn't really ill and today was a test.  Bear isn't sitting SATs, he is in Year 4.  I am glad he is out of the scandal that is the current swathe of testing but I daresay it won't be much different in two years time.  However the tests apparently decide who sits on which table next year, and bear is really keen to be on the top table.  Bear got 100% on Year 7 mental maths tests last weekend when he visited the maths tutor, but he is tying himself in knots about this.  I suspect that the tests with the awesome maths tutor are 'play' to him, but the stuff in school is real and he is getting himself into a right state.  I checked with school, and they insisted he went in.  He has come home fine, not so flushed, nervous about the test and subdued.

This meant that I spent time worrying about him instead of sorting out kitchen/dining room.  I'll have to get started any second now.  It's not just a worry about bear, but also about the rodent ulcer, which is a very non-aggressive, easily treatable form of cancer, plus I have PMT and it is crippling me.  I don't get cross with PMT, I get exhausted and it hasn't helped.

Besides, I have a kitchen full of bewildered midges.  I blogged a while back about getting the wool and bracken compost.  It's much nicer than the stuff that I got with the Tesco delivery, and Dilly and Dally, my two scented geraniums, have flourished in it.  I put them out today for a breath of fresh air and I think it came as a shock, they looked like this...

They have shot up and I am going to have to start pruning them.  I wonder if the cuttings would take in a plastic cup of compost with a little rooting powder.  The church is having a plant sale and I would like to do my bit.

I first realised there was an issue when the study filled with tiny flies and tracked them back to the plants.  I'd kept the compost in the cupboard downstairs to keep slugs out. Suddenly the kitchen was full of baffled tiny flies.  I am convinced they came in with the compost.  There are these tiny specks, drifting around looking for sheep and dying in drifts.  When I took a jug of water out to revive Dilly and Dally there were four dead, tiny midges that had got there in the last six hours.  The poor meter fitter is going to think he is out on the moors.  This is not going to be helped as we are getting stray ants.  They look lost and aimless, but I do not approve of them.  I am not sure where they are coming in, however, and an ant every day or two is hard to track down.  The garden is full of them, so there is a nest somewhere.

There aren't many bees flying around the chimney but there is a lot of blossom.  I hope this shot comes out better.  The blossom is really heavy this spring, wonderfully so!

I'll try and get a good shot of the crab apple blossom tomorrow.  It is really glorious, and on a main road!