New Babies

Well! Our new Queen Bee Philibert is certainly strutting her stuff in the Malarkey Hive. Yesterday's hive inspection revealed a whole mass of new baby bees born this last week- all furry and doing their house training before they go out a-flying. And we can tell they are new baby Philibert bees because they are a totally different colour to the old Australian Queen bees. The old bees are a caramel honey colour; these bees are black, like the original British bee which I am thrilled about. We have a multi-cultural hive!

There are masses more bees waiting to be born. There are eggs, there are larvae in various stages of development, and there, plain as the pointy nose on my Kentish maid face, was Queen Philibert herself, looking like she owned the place. Which, of course, she does. I think we've got the colony in the best position to weather the coming winter. Fingers crossed!

On another note, we've had another brief flirtation with moving abroad. Andy's colleague, Tim, has a house in Brittany. I say a house, it's a smallholding really, and every time it is mentioned it brings back the gripe that if we want to be able to afford a smallholding of our own the obvious way is to spend our money abroad, because you get more for your money, landwise, in foreign climes.

Any how, the conversation on Friday night, stimulated by another Daily Rant article on a certain segment of Brits scamming the social service system and preferring to live off benefits rather than fend for themselves, went thus:

'Tim says that in France you get benefits for a year, and then that's it,' said Andy. 'Once the year is up, you manage by yourself or end up on the streets.'
'How caring,' I said.
'Yes; and he says that once you've had a job out there for 6 months, you're pretty much guaranteed it for life because employers aren't allowed to sack anyone.'
'Wow...'
'And that although the taxes are much higher, you get to retire when you want, because the retirement pot is really well funded...'
'What, like when you're twelve even?'
'Yeah, whenever you like...'
'So,' I said, 'if it's that good, why isn't Tim working here?'
'I asked him that,' said Andy. 'He didn't know.'
'Perhaps we should go out there,' I said. 'You and Tim could set up a practice together.'
'I might have trouble with the lingo,' said Andy.
'Nah,' I said. 'All you need to do, based on your current client experiences, is say, 'Le poo ou le wee-wee?' and do a Gallic shrug.'
'Do you think that'd work?' said Andy, trying a Gallic shrug for size.
'Of course,' I said. 'Or you could stick to treating les animaux du expat communitee. I bet il y a un call pour that.'
'C'est possible,' dit Andy.
'And all your dispenses could be prefaced by 'Voici la jollop pour ton chien/chat/ couchon/ vache,' dit moi.
'Alors,' dit Andy. 'Je pense que nous habitons dans Cloud Cuckoo terraine.'

I got a bit lost then. 'But we've just had the hall, stairs and landing decorated,' I said. 'P'raps we should stay put for a while. Enjoy the wallpaper.'

Sit! And staaaaaay!

I popped into town this morning to post a letter to my Auntie in Scotland. In last Friday's Kent Messenger there was an old photo of the Maidstone Swimming Club from the 1950's and there, smiling away in the back row, was my Auntie in Scotland. And in the front row was my Mum. Not smiling, but I was struck by how much I look like her and how much she has changed in appearance over the years. But my Auntie in Scotland was instantly recognisable. She's having a tricky time at the moment so I thought an old photo of her in her swimming cossie, published in the local rag might cheer her up. No, honestly, she'll be entertained and it might distract her, albeit momentarily, from her current angst.

On the way home from posting the letter, I had to cross a double two-laned carriageway, guarded by many traffic signals that take either a very long, or very short time to change. Waiting to cross the first road were myself, a very tall man, a young woman with a buggy and a visually-impaired lady with a guide dog and someone whom I assumed was the guide dog trainer, supervising this lady's first trip out with her new dog.

'Sit!' said the lady. The guide dog sat and all us fellow pedestrians slammed to a halt at the edge of the pavement, even though it was clear a couple of us were thinking of making a dash across the road despite the absence of the little green man. We all stood patiently and waited. The road was clear. In all directions. There was NO traffic coming. Nothing. I could have driven a flock of vague sheep across that road and still had time to go back and fetch the one that hadn't realised the others had already moved on.

But no. We all stood in a line until the little green man appeared. And even then not one of us moved until the guide dog stood up and led us all safely across the road to the middle island.

'Sit!' commanded the lady and again, we all stood and waited. Still no traffic. 'This is ridiculous,' I thought. 'I am being controlled by the sub-liminal thoughts of a black labrador.' And so I marched across the road regardless, even though the little green man was absent and everyone else was standing still, steadfastly waiting for the next command to move.

And do you know what? I felt as guilty as a puppy next to a pile of poo. Shame on me!

Back home I thought how interesting (if slightly weird) it was that we all obeyed the unspoken command of crossing the road via the guide dog code. I thought, are people really so much like sheep that there is some kind of tacit code of conduct inherent in all human beings that prevents them from taking simple risks because they are afraid of what other people might think of them, because they are 'afraid' of 'doing the wrong thing'?

I was out in the garden yesterday, doing a bit more weeding. And as I was hacking away at the moss between the paving slabs I thought, 'Why am I doing this? I like moss. It's all green and bouncy. It adds a sort of country cottage lived-in feel to the place.' And a voice from nowhere said, 'You're tidying up ready to sell.'

'Oh no I'm not,' I said. 'I have plans for the garden. I'm not going to invest a lot of time and effort in planting and digging and bees and making it all lovely, just for someone else to enjoy, am I? If I was doing it up to sell, I'd cover everything in paving slabs, put a pot of bedding plants by the front door and that would be that.'

The voice sighed. I hate it when a random voice sighs at you. 'You've been looking at houses in Normandy, haven't you?' it said.
'And what if I have?' I asked. 'It was mere curiosity and whilst it was interesting to discover that we could buy a nice property with ample land which would leave us virtually mortgage-free, I ain't moving.'

'We'll see,' said the voice.

And this is what happens. I determine to get on with things as they are. I resolve to make the most of what I've got and then some random force decides to stick its nosey beak into my plans and stir them up. I had reached a point of contentment - we've got a nice house, manageable household bills and mortgage, hens and homegrown veg. We are healthy. I have time for writing, gardening and cooking. I am calm. I am happier than I've ever been and should be content to maintain the status quo.

Yet by leaping ahead of the guide dog this morning, and not waiting to cross safely with the crowd, maybe the powers-that be are saying there is still a bit of a renegade inside me, hiding behind the bushes and waiting to jump out and 'BOO!' in the face of Fate. And then I saw in my diary that exactly one year ago I did a Tarot reading for my Auntie in Scotland that very distinctly said she should move back down South 'for there may be trouble ahead'. And she didn't. She was almost there but she talked herself out of it and now she is in a tricky situation.

Should we listen to random voices?

Only if we want to know what's really good for us.

From England to France...

Yesterday, I wrote 2 blogs, one of which was commented upon by Vera, mon amie en France. Now of the two blogs, I thought she'd be more likely to comment on the one about sitting bare bottomed on the ground in order to test soil temperature because that is the kind of thing I imagine she would rush out to try immediately - or at least send hubbie Lester out to try, if only to snap a few cheeky shots to post on her own blog.

But no, 'twas the worm one that brought forth the comment. Mostly because, as she digs her way heroically through her new small-holding at the base of the Pyrenees, she has found only two and a half worms. (What happened to the other half of the half worm? Was the half that Vera found still alive and wriggling? Is it still a functional worm??) And a lot of moles. Now, I haven't found any moles in my garden and I believe moles like worms (to eat, not to take to the cinema or anything) so I think les moles francais might need their knives and forks removing.

Often, as Vera and I travel towards various levels of self-sufficiency in our respective corners of the world, we find ourselves doing similar things at similar times. For example, we both bought willow trees on the same day a couple of weeks ago! And a few days ago, Vera wrote about her dearth of worms on the very same day that worms was my subject of choice. I have to say I felt marginally guilty about writing about worms. I'd been in the garden all day and discovered a worm planet in the compost bin. I was very excited. I thought, 'there's my blog subject for today.' So I came inside. late in the afternoon, cranked up the computer, logged on and read about Vera's digging and her discovery of a single worm and thought, 'I can't write about my mass of worms. It'll sound like I'm bragging.'

But then I thought, no, perhaps Vera will be encouraged that there are still worms on planet earth and they haven't all left for Neptune. And perhaps French worms are a bit more relaxed about making an appearance at the start of the growing season. After all, the bottom end of France has a longer growing season than the bottom end of England, so French worms have a little more time on their hands. I expect they are still sitting deep in their burrows, quaffing vin rouge and nibbling on the last Camembert of winter.

So, Vera tried to get Lester enthused about worms but he wasn't keen. But rest assured, Vera, Andy wasn't too excited, either. Last night I said 'Have you been on the Wormcity website?' and he said, 'Er...no. Not yet.' I said, 'We have to keep the wormery in a bin bag for the first three or four days because apparently the worms will try and escape their alien environment.' 'Really?' said Andy. 'But it will help if we put some of our garden soil into their wormery to help acclimatise them,' I continued doggedly. 'Hmmm?' said Andy.

At this point I gave up trying to get Andy excited about worms. So perhaps it's a man thing. I expect they spend so much time comparing worms when they are little boys that the novelty has worn off by the time they reach manhood. I, however, intend to fling myself enthusiastically into the whole wormery thing (not literally, it's only 72 litres in capacity and I think my capacity it considerably more than that) and I am looking forward to feeding my vegetables on nutrient rich compost and liquid plant food.

As I write this, I am holding a text conversation with Andy. We need some topsoil for our raised bed 'n' Plan Bee Garden and he has embarked on a spot of bartering with Gemma (a.k.a The Gemsta, Mrs Poo's Formula One Racing co-driver) because she has topsoil in her garden we can have in exchange for half a dozen eggs. I felt this was a bit mean so offered a cake into the bargain and the deal is done! Half a dozen eggs plus a chocolate chip 'n' banana cake (or carrot cake if I do those -yes I do) in exchange for several bags of topsoil!

Superstores? Who needs them?