Red badges of courage

Sorry I haven't written for a while, I blame global warming. Not only have the cherry blossoms come out a little early this year (see below for sample tree snapped in the yard of Katherine's new primary school one minute's walk from home), but of greater impact to me, the first mosquito of the year found its way into the house on Thursday night. Despite an extensive array of what Americans call bug screens on the windows, the little blighter made itself at home in our bedroom at 3am and kept me up with its whining wings for a good hour. It tormented me as Yoshie slept. If I covered my head with the duvet, I couldn't hear the thing, but couldn't breathe, and if I risked exposure to the air, its drone would send me into involuntary fits of slapping myself in a bid to kill it. In the morning, I woke up bruised, but intact. K-chan, who had crawled into our futons at some point in the night, slept like a baby, but had two bites on her cheek as her red badges of courage.