In which not much happens over a long space of time

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 (if any) quiet at all. I think she did enjoy her week, but suspect she was relieved to get back to some peace. 

In other news the weather has been beautiful so this weekend I extracted honey from two supers and now have tons waiting to go into jars. Unfortunately my hive is missing its queen (I'm hoping she's out finding husbands and will be back home safe when I look again next weekend), so the workers are spending all their time making honey as they don't have any brood to look after right now. 

Someone asked me the other day why I keep bees. My answer; "bees make their way into your brain for one reason or another, and once they're in, they stay." In my case, bees stamped their existence on me when I was a girl growing up in Burghclere. A swarm of bees had set up their temporary base in a large conker tree in our drive and my father had decided that this was a good time to catch them and put them into an old hive we'd found in the orchard. 

The plan was to put a large tea box on the top of a step ladder immediately under the swarm. My Father would then wallop the bees with a large stick, at which point they would fall into the box, stay in the box, and ultimately be transferred from the box into the hive. While my brother, sister, Mother and I hid in the house watching the operation behind closed windows, he climbed the step ladder, large stick in hand...

Seconds later there was a yell and the sound of running feet. From our vantage point behind closed glass, we watched Father sprinting towards the swimming pool, the livid swarm in hot pursuit. 

It was a sight I'll never forget, and while the water saved him temporarily, the bees did manage to get a lot of stings in as and when he had to surface. And that was it for me. The bees took hold in a small compartment of my brain, and when our neighbour here in Donnington Square offered me a small nucleus hive I took it. I may not be the best beekeeper, but when you get it right there is a lot of satisfaction to be had. And while I have been chased by angry bees on numerous occasions, I have never come close to inciting a level of rage to the extent Father managed all those years ago.