Keep calm and hold the line

When your 13 year old daughter asks for the first time to do proper teenage loitering...(think back, remember what that meant in your own youth?)....so when she says she is taking the bus with her pal to a village 7 miles away on a Friday night to hang out in the dark in a local park with three boys with footballer names you've never heard of before? The answer is no! Nay, nay and thrice nay! "Not yet!" I say, roping in her dad in via speakerphone for back up, and he's more hardline than me (I knew he would be, because I'm a cunning and strategic thinker under pressure, otherwise known as 'a mum", we are legion). Anyways, "wait 'till you're older and the nights are lighter" we say. She's not happy, she's furious, unnervingly quietly furious at the moment. Banshee building, take cover soon. But she's still nae gettin' oot!!!!

I'll just stay calm and think of this view, captured an hour ago as Sam, I and the dogs hiked up Beauty Hill in the beautiful spring teatime sunshine after work. And what of the camera trap and news of my (not imaginary, honest) big panther/rabid buff hamster (best to have all sides covered)? We had a sneak peak last night and whatever it was was sniffing around the back of the camera and not in shot so they took it home last night. Only to find something had had a right go of the carcass overnight so we missed the culprit. Cest la vie. Camera trap has now been relocated elsewhere to see what beasts are about.