Smash.....

...went the milk bottle on the kitchen floor. T is ill again, but well enough to get milk bottles out of the fridge and drop them.

I was very gallant and lent him my slippers to go safely out of the kitchen in. In the old days I'd shout at both boys to climb up on the chairs and stay there while I cleared up asap.

Not having small children, I didn't clear it up within 5 minutes. Which meant I was slightly surprised to find it all still there in its slivers and pint of milk glory after I had done something I could have postponed like finishing my bowl of cereal and reading the paper.

I then made a real meal of mopping it up. I think I had simply forgotten my technique for this job. I used to be really good at it! Anyway I rediscovered my method eventually.

'Life long learning' is a nice phrase which in my case is more accurately put as 'life long learning, forgetting and rediscovering the hard way'.

4am

We did some more dawn chasing today. I was up at 4am, then we were in the car and off at 4.15am. We got to the Clumps at 4.30am, bumped into a group of young men also doing something dawn-related, and found our spot.

I had a blanket round me so I caved in and simply curled up on the damp ground and pretended I was back in bed. In spite of that the birds sang so sweetly and each chirping was in some way different from the previous one.

When I opened my eyes I could see the dew on each of the blades of grass and seed heads.

Another odd thing happened, all of a sudden I felt the temperature shift upwards a bit, that must have been when the sun shone over the horizon. I hadn't expected it at all, so there is a new finding.

Thomas stood and watched for the photo he had planned. He was 200 watts short of the level of light he really needed for the shot he wanted! So he came back with just one test shot.

Anyway, we have both had much needed extra hours of sleep now.