Chickens in a box

The boys and Eddie have gone to Hengistbury Head for the day, leaving Dolly and I at home sleeping and working respectively. We were supposed to have been going as a family on Monday this week, but the forecast was dire - and correct as it turned out - so we postponed until the sun returned. Unfortunately as Dolly's paw is still healing after she sliced and diced it on the litter  [insert sharp item of choice from the following: dog food carton, Strongbow/Monster/Red Bull can, shard of glass] up at Donnington Castle , there was no way she could go to the beach.  So I am dog-sitting while the others eat fish and chips and ice cream, and dig holes in the sand. 😢

I don't have much luck with queens, they seem to like going AWOL for no apparent reason, leaving me with a hive infested with drones and bad tempered workers. The last time I ordered a queen bee she ended up swarming and went to live in the neighbour's hive, much to his amusement when he realised he'd caught himself a beautiful new mated Buckfast queen. Note that there was no offer to return her.... This year I must have made yet another rookie mistake in trying to prevent my one hive from swarming in the Spring. I took a queen cell out to make up a nuc, but in the end, neither that cell, nor any subsequent queen cells in the main hive, ended up actually bearing a bee of any shape or form. I've waited for a while before taking the leap and ordering a new queen in case a maiden was out looking for husbands and just hadn't come back yet, but in the end as the drone brood piled up and no worker brood appeared week after week, it was time to step in.  My Buckfast-cross ...

Littering is out of control around here, particularly in the parks and up at Donnington Castle where people tend to congregate for picnics now they can't go to Costa or Pret or McDonalds or wherever they used to drag their kids. Now you see families waddling up to the castle with their buggies and kids most days. In the evenings they make way for the teenagers; parking up to smoke joints and shag their girlfriends.  The resulting mess is indescribable. Cigarette packets, McDonalds and KFC meals - whole meals, including chicken legs, burgers and chips - left on the grass. Strongbow and Red Bull cans scatter the hills and chocolate wrappers whizz past in the wind before settling down along the path.  Amidst the debris, the families sit happily with their children, adding to the piles of rubbish.  Walking Dolly at dusk last week (and raging), I went back the following morning with dog and bin liner. All the rubbish from the night before was exactly where it had been left, so...

Yesterday was greatly looked forward to by William, James and I for many reasons; Will because he got to spend the day with his best friend Taylor, James because he got to spend the day without Will and myself because I'd decided to spend the day doing as little as possible.  After Will had set off for Taylor's, James and I jumped in the Mazda and headed off as planned to The Wellington Arms for lunch. They had a wonderful spread of homemade quiches, pies and incredible sausage rolls along with sourdough loaves, cakes, flans - you name it, as well as a wide range of home grown vegetables you can take home. Then you have the option to stay and eat either in the restaurant proper, or choose from the cafe menu. We'd come this far...so we both went for deep fried courgette flowers in tempura batter from the Welli Deli cafe, washed down with a Fever Tree lime and soda.  Well the size of those flowers - they were huge. The batter light as a cloud, sprinkled with the thinnest sli...

A week off, but not a switch off. It's hard not to keep an eye on the coalface and I did have one thing I had to finish while I'm off. To be honest I don't really mind. My friends at work are all so lovely. I don't know how I would have coped in lockdown without them. Although we do everything over Webex, just knowing that every day I'll have a chat or a meeting of some kind to keep me communicating and thinking, makes a big difference. When I'm on holiday I do miss them, and worry that everything's going OK without me (which of course it is).  In other news the sun is shining and yesterday after five long months of Veet hair removal cream I was finally able to get my legs waxed and some gels put on my toes. Painful but worth it (I wore a mask). Tomorrow I'm getting my hair done. 'Wash, cut and blow dry?' Asked the receptionist who called to book me in. Oh no, I'm going to need a lot more than that my friend....By my birthday on Friday I shal...

Lockdown is lifting, but new freedoms come (quite rightly) with new rules, and as of my birthday, here in the UK it will be mandatory to wear masks in shops.  To date, wearing masks here has been down to personal choice. I haven’t worn one yet, mainly because I haven’t gone anywhere that requires me to. As I spend my time at home working, walking the dog – on my own – or punishing myself with online gym glasses, my view has been that I don’t need to wear a mask.   Last night I was talking to a couple of friends on WhatsApp and the subject of masks came up. If I’m honest, I knew I was likely to get a rise if I mentioned I didn’t even own one. I was right. For the remainder of the conversation I was told I should be wearing a mask, wouldn’t want to end up on a ventilator and should get out to the shops (newly acquired mask on) for my own mental health. Eventually, the offer was made to send me a box of masks to which my reply was along the lines of ‘thanks but no thanks.’  ...

Lying on my gym mat early this morning staring up that the sky I noticed the swifts had gone. Usually there are several circling high above me as I crunch through a variety of painful core exercises and yesterday there seemed to be more than usual, so I suspect that the babies have fledged, and the new families have set off on the long flight back to Africa for the winter.  Looking up at the blue, empty sky made me realise how long it's been since lockdown began and life became unbelievably mundane. My routine over the past three months has hardly deviated from the following: 06.45 - alarm goes off, Radio 4 goes on.  07.00 - head to kitchen to greet hound and put the coffee on 07.13 - set up laptop on small coffee table on the patio (weather permitting), get coffee and a pint of water and log into the gym class 08.00 - finish class, breakfast, shower, log onto work 10.00 - walk hound, then back to work 12.00 - lunch 12.30 - back to work 15.00 - guitar practice (if time) 18.00 ...

It's still lockdown, although restrictions are lifting slightly. To be honest that doesn't make much difference to us; we're still home schooling, Eddie and I are working all hours on back-to-back calls and outings are limited to the supermarket on a Saturday. Well, Eddie's outings anyway. I do the cleaning most Saturday mornings, which essentially means I don't go anywhere apart for Dolly and my daily dog walks. It's OK. We're kind of used to it now, and with virtual workouts on the terrace added into the mix and some guitar practice here and there I don't get bored. We recently had Grandma to stay for a week, which was an interesting experience. Our good intentions were to let her have a week with the family, keeping busy and doing lots of different things as her life at home is very quiet. But after a few days we came to realise that actually she is much happier living quietly than in the constant hubbub of our own family where there is very little (i...