‘Do you think you can put on your purple sweater and just sit on the couch so I can take a picture of you?’ I asked the professor around 6.30 on Monday evening. He glared at me. ‘You can just sit there and read a book or something, you don’t even have to look at the camera,’ I assured him. And, because he has no choice in these matters, he put on his sweater and sat on the couch.

Which neatly coincided with the boys’ exit from their [weekly] bath. ‘I’ll let you have some candy if you put on these outfits and let me take a picture of you,’ I bribed them. I didn’t even bother with the ‘ask’, I went straight for the bribe. ‘Parenting just goes out the window for a picture,’ the professor muttered, all bitter in his purple sweater. But he was probably just upset that I hadn’t offered him any candy in exchange for his cooperation.

I don’t normally ask the members of my family to don coordinating outfits at 6.30pm, but I was desperate for a picture for my Monday photo challenge. And the theme – picked by moi – was purple. Of all things.

It would be an understatement to say ‘the pictures didn’t turn out terribly well’. (Bad lighting. Nobody in the mood to have their picture taken. And the professor saying helpful things like ‘give her blue steel’. Which, I guess, was what they were trying to do here. Well, everyone except our oldest boy-child…..)

Luckily I had an ‘excellent’ back-up shot of me, sitting in my car-van. Wearing a purple scarf.