Bee-line

In the house we have just left, we built an extension which contained our bedroom.  It was spacious, got the morning light, everything we wanted,

EXCEPT

we seemed to have built it on an ancestral bumble bee route.  For many generations, huge, woolly bees had flown along that bit of clear sky and now that there was a bedroom in the way, they didn’t seem to be able to stop. 

So every morning in Summer, we would awake thinking to ourselves, “That alarm clock sounds very low –pitched today, in fact, a bit like somebody humming.  No.  More like buzzing.  That’s it, buzzing.”

At that point, reality would kick in and I would wheedle Nigel – “Would you mind letting the bee out, love.”

Well, he did sleep on the bee side of the bed.  It was a bit like letting the cat out only with the spice of added danger thrown in, especially as we were both half dressed and half asleep.

But in our new house, I was kinda missing the bee ritual.

Until the last day or two when the cotoneaster tree at the front has burst into bloom.  It is now covered in a mass of busy bumble bees.  Nigel and I watch them happily. Especially as they are of a much smaller species than our former morning visitors.

However, we may have bigger problems than bees here – as we watched, an enormous hornet descended, grabbed a bee and made off to its nest.

Which I hope is a very long way away.