Dank

It was still dark, but the Boy Wonder and I had been awake for some while - he jumping up and down on the double bed in his room, singing songs at the top of his voice, and every now and then saying "I am going to give you a CUDDLE!" before hurling himself full-length across my head, while I tried with an increasing sense of futility to persuade him that it was still the middle of the night and we needed to get some more sleep - when the grandfather clock in the hall began to chime, and we both started counting:

"One - two - three - four - five..."

J (silently): Surely not? This torture has been going on for about a week already - it must surely be later than five???

B: "Five o'clock! Time to wake Granddad up!"

J: "No, darling. Five o'clock is too early for waking Granddad up."

B (sliding purposefully off the bed): "I am going to wake Granddad up and tell him to stop the clock. Then it won't be five o'clock any more."

I was so charmed by this piece of reasoning that I agreed to go and check the time on the clock in the bathroom, and it turned out that we'd both miscounted, or more probably failed to hear the first chime: it was actually six o'clock. By B's standards this is virtually mid-morning, so all of us (including Granddad) got up. 

I'd been hoping for a reprise of yesterday's cold-but-bright-ness, but instead we got the kind of misty, murky day when the sun never seems to quite get round to rising, along with that bitter dankness that cuts straight through to your bones. We did try playing out in the garden for a while, but the Boy absolutely hated it, so we retreated to the kitchen in short order and found indoor things to do instead. At this point I'd like to recommend BEAR Cocoa Alphabites, which were the big hit of the morning - providing not only decent nutrition, but also about an hour's worth of spelling fun.

After lunch we headed back to Monmouth to return B to his Daddy, after which R and I went for post-Boy coffee and cake at the Broadway Tower café. I've shot the Tower numerous times over the years in different light, seasons, and weathers, but I think this can claim to be the flattest image of it that I've ever taken. In its favour, it speaks quite clearly of the kind of day it was.