Chasing the Bumble

Yes, we did much digging and weeding at the allotment yesterday. Yes, we planted lettuce, carrots and basil, and pulled some rhubarb and found a stray carrot still hiding under ground from way back heaven knows when. And yes, we earthed up potatoes and got ridiculously smiley over the fact the strawberries are flowering and the gooseberries have many, many more flower buds on them this year because I actually remembered to net them before the birdies got a good gooseberry bud feast. We even plucked a good bag full of dandelion heads in order to set a brew of dandelion wine on the go.

But the best thing about allotmenteering yesterday was pursuing bumblebees about the plot in an attempt to identify them. Did you know there are 24 species of bumblebee in the UK? But that 6 of these 24 are cuckoo bumblebees that parasite other species? And that 3 species that were are no longer as they are extinct, and more are threatened with extinction? And that the reason I know these things is that I am now a member of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust?

Oh yes, I have a full colour bumble identification poster, a magazine, a car sticker, a cute little bee badge and a packet of wild flower seeds that I shall scatter forthwith when I can decide on a suitable spot of ground. So at the allotment Andy leapt around like a wild thing, pursuing with his camera phone the bumbles that strayed across our plots. And when we got home we studied the poster and decided we had seen an Early Bumblebee, a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee and possibly a red-tailed cuckoo bee but we weren't quite sure on account of the picture being a tad fuzzy and bees being a tad fuzzy so there was a little too much conflict of fuzziness to be absoultely certain.

And it was whilst reflecting on our very busy, very productive, very satisfying weekend that I had a mini-epiphany. Actually, I was thinking about the week of work ahead of me. Anyone who is a teacher will be aware of a certain sense of doom that descends around 6 p.m on a Sunday evening. And my sense of doom is ALWAYS accompanied by the feeling that I cannot teach. I do not have the wherewithall, the talent, to be a teacher. And then I go to work on Monday, and as soon as the first group of students pitch up in my classroom (in this case, Year 11) I find I can teach and I get on with the day. And then as soon as I leave school and I'm walking home I catch myself thinking, 'How did I do that? How did I teach those classes today?'

And my epiphany was that it isn't actually me who is teaching. It is some kind of auto pilot alter ego me, who goes into teacher mode and walks the walk and talks the talk and somehow survives the day.

Because the real me is the me who digs and weeds and plants and grows. And talks to chickens and stares at blossom and is becoming more and more engrossed in bees and everything they do. The person who loses herself in books about rearing quail and the possibility of top-bar hives and who wants to register her interest with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust following their plea for people who are interested in leading Bumblebee walks in 2011.

You know I lost my voice last week, for no obvious or apparent reason? Well, it came back over the weekend. But within 4 hours of me being back at work, it had gone again. My TA said, 'It's stress, you know.'

So on the way home I dropped into the allotment, watered the plants and seedlings, pottered a bit, watched a couple of bees, and then went home. I still couldn't talk properly when I got home but now, a couple of hours later, my voice is coming back.

It can be tricky living with two different aspects of yourself. You want to do the right thing for your family and you want to do the right thing for yourself. You want to be responsible and financially secure, yet you want to be happy and fulfilled, too. I know I've got to pack in the teaching. I'll probably sign up with an agency to do a day or two of supply a week. And I can do tutoring which I've always enjoyed. Especially as Andy is cutting down his hours at work so he, too, can spend more time at the allotment and learn how to bee-keep properly. But life has got to be slower now; it has got to be more about health and happiness than profit and possession.

Maybe it is something to do with growing older. Maybe it is to do with a shift in priorities. Maybe it is to do with wanting your world to be smaller...

After work tomorrow I'm stopping off at the allotment to plant beans. Maybe the bees will have something to say on the matter.