The Planets and regeneration.

The first photo is of a handsome Earth-Moon Orbiter that I bought for the g'son monthly through some enticing magazine. It came in bits over a year, along with glossy pages editions about the gyrations of our neighbours in the cosmos. Xander likes models and is fairly fascinated by Space but it rather stretched his patience. Firstly - once a month wasn't nearly often enough to sustain interest. Then it proved more difficult than we had imagined (it's a working model) but he wanted to do it himself. Finally he took it to school each week for 'Design' lessons during which class they can, if they wish, make models. Now it is mine. An early birthday present. I think he is really glad to be free of the responsibility at last.

Ungratefully I am thinking: "Wonderful. All that brass to clean."

The next two pics are a tribute to dogged survival. My friendly gardener offered a couple of shrubs he'd taken from somewhere else for my almost empty garden. When they arrived one looked quite, quite, dead, and although I could feel the sap still in its skinny branches, in this outpost of suburbia I was ashamed to have it in full view of the neighbours who are all shopping at the Garden Centre for lusty young bedding plants. My ma's fear of what the neighbours think is still lurking in me sadly. I heard her saying: 'They'll think you're mad, keep watering that dead thing. Crazy old woman, that's what they'll think of you.'"

I shut her out, kept watering, kept looking out for little green shoots, was giving up on it when I noticed the shoots are red not green. It's alive!

I've no idea what it is.