The Unicorn.

It was exam day today with five of our protégés taking their Basic Beemaster exam, another two will be doing it tomorrow. I went down to Newbattle to give a little moral support to my charge, he passed with distinction; I heard the results for the first three before I left and they were similarly successful. The examiner doesn't want any other result as passing this exam with distinction is the key that opens the door to all the other beekeeping qualifications and, in the four years I have been involved with the project, not one of our charges has failed to reach this goal, not even me. A few years ago I decided that, after nearly thirty years, I should take the exam; after all, If I'm telling the students how to keep bees then I should atnleast be qualified to the level that they wish to attain. It doesn't make me a better beekeeper, but the teaching definitely does.

I travelled there on the newly repaired trike, it was interesting. The machine is a little bit lively, I wasn't sure if it was that I had just forgotten how it handled or whether it was the fitting of carbon fibre forks to a fifty year old steel machine that was responsible, maybe it was a bit of both. On the way back home I blipped this unicorn, it's at the entrance to the housing estate, a few feet from the Kerr family crest posted last Sunday. Then, of course, it started to rain again; at least we didn't get the forecast thunder and lightening - that would have really upset the bees.