the swarm

At the bottom of the garden we have a compost container shaped a bit like a bee hive.  We know it’s not a real hive.  Our friends and family do too.  But members of the genus Apis, are clearly not so sure.

I open the lid to deposit some organic matter and am immediately attacked by a swarm of bees.  

I say swarm — there are a least 4 of them. They go berserk and chase me across the lawn.  I get stung in my left ear - twice - and then on my right eyebrow. It’s fortunate that I’m wearing glasses because they offer some form of protection. 

It’s also unfortunate that I’m wearing glasses, because in my attempt to repel the onslaught, I flail my arms about, sending my glasses flying across the garden.  These are the same glasses I fell asleep on, a few blips ago.  They well and truly stuffed now.

I call Nursee and she eventually comes to see what all the fuss is about.  (I’m making a fuss at this stage).  She can’t see what I’m on about.  Me; “put your glasses on”.  Her; “…… Oh”.

She fetches antihistamine cream and the bottom half of her chocolate frog (a souvenir from her Ride the Night goody-bag).  This latter is to placate me.

A little later I decide this might make a cautionary blip so when everything has calmed down I try couple of snaps.  I keep my distance and hide behind a shrub, but they get me again - this time on the left eyebrow. 

These are strange (to me, at least) bees; completely black with a white rump.  Their stings are sharp - but not the barbed type that get left in the victim.  They look nothing like the bees on the lavender bushes at the other end of the garden.  Who, by the way, are doing what bees usually do - buzzing around flowers and completely ignoring me. 

A little while later I have another brush with nature; this time altogether more pleasurable.  

Just beyond the front door is a narrow bed full of alpine strawberries and assorted shrubs - it’s a sort of dumping ground for plants that never made it to pride of place, but to which we have some sort of attachment.  I notice a couple of strawberries are ripe and as I bend down to pick them, there’s a rustle and a duck shoots out.  And there, in amongst the leaves of a variegated grass (just couldn’t bring ourselves to throw it out) is a nest - with 7 pale blue eggs.  I turn around and the duck is watching me from the drive.  

Not the best place to raise ducklings - just yards from the front door and on the wrong side of the house from the canal. We’ll worry about that later.  In the meantime, Anniemay is excited - she’s going to be a Grand-duck-mother.  But no blips for the moment.  She needs to get used to us. (The duck, that is).

Now I understand why there was a duck on the lawn the other morning.