My own terror in the Wild Wood

Like Mole I was terrified. Like Mole I was alone in the Wild Wood and like Mole I was there by my own choice.  Also, like Mole I was young, about 10, and certainly naive and finally like Mole, the trees became characters with seeing eyes, reaching arms and try telling me otherwise, they moved!

But unlike Mole, who wanted to visit Badger, in the warm cosy comfort of his underground home, I was heading towards a dark, I was to find empty, cold and forbidding house deep in the wood.  Although near to the beginning, there’s a sort of P.S. here: as I was beginning to think that through the mists of time, in my case not far from a half century, I might be exaggerating a little after all when you’re small things seem bigger, distances longer and just maybe events a little more scary!  But no, I google earthed it and what you are about to read, was all but confirmed by the satellite view – well almost ... the trees didn’t actually move on google earth, but they were certainly as I remembered them – tall, thick and dark, and believe me they certainly moved all those years ago!  And ... it had at the time seemed a long way and it indeed was!

Like my last blog post, I’m back at my prep school in deepest darkest Kent; a smallish, although at that time rather flat footed and plump, impressionable young schoolboy, but displaying a trait I still have, being only too happy to help a lost soul and particularly a damsel in distress!

It was the depths of winter cold and dark outside the large gothic windows of the classroom, set as I said before in a large gothic style country house of which a certain toothy count would have been much at home.  To make the most of the daylight hours our school day included sport for the early part of the afternoon, having had a rest or practised your musical instruments (there’s still one piece of music, the name of which escapes me, that takes me back to resting on my dormitory bunk bed all those years ago – the musician must have been getting ready for an important exam as he practised it over and over again for what seemed like weeks!!) to let our food settle after lunch, before a couple of lessons prior to tea, after which there was prep or homework, and finally a little R & R for playing games before bed.  But, now was the lesson before tea and darkness had descended like a thick felt blanket over the outside of the school, its sports fields and closely surrounding dense woodland, a million miles from civilisation in the eyes of an impressionable young lad like myself!

Into the classroom came the Housemaster’s wife from The Grange, the dark, cold and forbidding house deep in the wood, mentioned above which held a couple of dormitories, one of which was mine, but which at that point I didn’t know was empty and where normally it was a case of strength in numbers as at bedtime, the residents walked across together with a number of responsible adults, at this time of the year with a plentiful supply of bright torches through the dark empty countryside with a yew shadowed ancient church and churchyard, somewhere in the middle.

Having excused herself to the teacher, she enquired if there was anyone from The Grange, who wouldn’t mind running an errand for her.  She had left something she needed on the kitchen table in her part of the house, a part I was not familiar with, and wanted someone to pop and get it for her before tea, as boys and staff ate together in the main school.  Keen to be helpful and perhaps improve my popularity a little, my hand shot up, keen to please, and was excused by the teacher and left with the housemaster’s wife to be briefed as to my important mission.

I should have perhaps been slightly wary when she gave me a large iron key, which she told me opened the large studded oak door, in the back of a gloomy arched brick surrounded porch leading into her private quarters with the kitchen opposite across the hallway. It now seems so obvious that if the house was all locked up and as the Housemaster was himself a teacher and currently lessons were underway, the house I normally knew bustling with excited young schoolboys, in a couple of large dormitories, was going to be empty.  But, still wishing to be helpful and not yet realising what I had volunteered for, she gave me the final instructions for what it was she wanted fetching, from the shopping basket in the middle of the large kitchen table and please would I remember to turn off the lights as I left, and that was when it did finally strike me and I realised what I had let myself in for, but now there was nothing I could do about it. I’d volunteered and to now refuse would not only have been seen as disobedient, but could have led to ridicule from unkind peers, if the reason had got out.  So with false bravado and a cheery smile, I told the Housemaster’s wife I’d be back as soon as I could and out from the brightly lit corridor I went, through a large old wooden door, glazed in the top panels, which after it had shut behind me, allowed the last vestiges of friendly warm light I would see for some time, to light up two long distorted rectangles on the gravel path I was now on, with the terrible truth of my mission already causing my heart to start racing. 

At about the same time, my legs started racing, as never before had I run so fast, what a shame I couldn’t be so athletic during sports day, or on the frightful cross country runs we were assured were good for us!  Before I knew it, I was down the gravel path to the end of the school building, precious little light shining from the high classroom windows, round the end and onto the long sloping terraced lawn garden, with shadowy stone walls along its length, flights of uneven stone steps between the terraces and large evergreen hedges beyond, and nearing the gap in the hedge at the bottom, couple of hundred yards down, as they would have been in those days, before I remember that then just across another piece of lawn was the old picket gate, framed by ancient yews, the way into the rambling overgrown graveyard, with other large yews dotted randomly amongst the tall erratically placed lichen covered gravestones, in the centre of which nestled a small dark stone built church of some antiquity, although church architecture was at this time the last thing on my mind, as with a sharp intake of breath, I was along the winding churchyard path and through the creaky lynch gate at the other side, before crossing a country track and over the stile into a steepish uphill sloping field beyond.

Being relatively out in the open did little to calm my pounding heart, but has reminded me as I write this that the “damsel in distress” I was helping out, had lent me a small rather weak beamed torch, which did admittedly help me a little to find my shaky way, but I also remember thinking also highlighted my presence to anyone, or indeed any wild animal, who happened to be abroad this dark wintery night.  Perhaps that’s why years later, when walking the dog late at night, I’m inclined not to shine a light, preferring to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and other eyes remain oblivious to my presence!!  With the initial burst of energy fading rapidly and the flat feet dragging more and more, I climbed the slope across the field towards another small wooden stile, the “portal” into the Wild Wood we were in at the beginning of the story, with the all-seeing trashing trees, moving stealthily along besides me just waiting for me to stumble on a protruding root, before – now in the cold light of day before what?  As in most similar circumstances in the many and varied folk tales centred in the dark wild woods, the frightened traveller usually is the good who conquers the evil and lives to fight another day, but in the dark of that distant night, as far as I was concerned the trees had turned into cackling carnivores, capable of crunching me up, bones and all, leaving nothing behind but perhaps the large iron key I was holding so tightly, but was bound to drop as the wooden fangs devoured me.  Through the narrow twisting path I ran, finally emerging into the small clearing containing the Grange, dark beyond believe as the trees seemed to close in over it and the lower branches seemed to still be trying to reach out and grab me to pull me back into the gnashing jaws of the large gaping trunks.

The torch by now seemed to be fading, and as I fumbled with shaking hands to put the key into the large lock, turn the many levers contained within the ancient mechanism and push open the large heavy door to gain access to the safety of the house within, it finally struck me that the house was large, rambling, very dark and I was all alone feeling around for the light switch, that would once again spotlight me to any wayward wolves or persons of ill repute in the vicinity.  So the bright light that lit up the dark panelled hallway, did little to calm the nerves, simply made it easier to find the kitchen door and subsequent light switch, locate the important item that my quest was to find, and ruin what little night vision I had built up on the way, as I quickly turned off the lights, closed the door and fumbled once more with the key as I hadn’t had the presence of mind to leave it conveniently in the lock.  It seemed more difficult to lock than open and as I struggled once more with the aged levers, becoming once more apparent of the reaching branches beyond the open porch and the dawning realisation that although I had the object of my quest safely in my grasp, the quest was far from over.  I still had to return through the Wild Wood, across the sloping field, over the country track, through the creaky lynch gate and around the church and through the graveyard, out through the picket gate and across a stretch of lawn, up the terraces and around the end of the school and onto the almost reassuring crunch of the gravel path.  Except this time having retrieved the treasured item, the flailing branches and lurking ne’er-too- wells, were all keen to find out what the gallant knight was carrying for the maiden in distress, and I’m sure as I none too gently closed the outside door of the school, I could hear footsteps in the gravel outside.

Leaning against the wall to catch my breath and abate my racing heart, as well as to make a mental note to think more about how much distress the maiden might be in, before committing myself in the future, I finally calmed down enough to search out the Housemaster’s wife and cheerily say “Your house key and the cigarettes you sent me for Mrs ......!!  But in light of current court cases of historic child abuse, perhaps she had better remain anonymous!!            

Window on the outside world

(My offering for a recent Woodland Trust competition)

Nearly half a century ago, due to my Father being in the Royal Air Force and being posted to Thailand to work for SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organisation), at the tender age of 9, I was sent to a boarding school in deepest Kent.

Although perhaps Kent isn’t known as an area of true wilderness, this school was, particularly to a young 9 year old boy, in the middle of nowhere - a large ornate Victorian structure of the kind that a film director might find useful for adventures of a Transylvanian nature involving “creatures” of the night.  And ... indeed having left the security of my own bedroom and been thrown together into a large dormitory with boys of a similar age, most of whom had been at the school for a year or two longer, the regular night-time ghost stories did little to put an impressionable and imaginative young boy at ease.

The school was in true Dracula style, approached past a Gothic gate house next to impressive iron gates that led to a very long wooded drive and was largely surrounded by huge tracts of dense deciduous woodland.  It’s amazing to think, in this day and age, that the large gates usually stood open and the extent of the school grounds “the bounds” were marked by a roughly circular mud track that coiled its way through the “middle” of the wood and around the school, not a fence in sight and only the stories of gypsies camping in the woods, ready to take wandering boys away, on the other side of the track that kept all but the most adventurous, or should that have been foolhardy of us boys clearly on the school side of the track.  Memory tells me it was only a few that escaped and those were the boys perhaps destined for psychiatric treatment rather than those who might subsequently explore of the wonders of our planet.  That was reserved for those who stoically survived the privations of a 1960’s preparatory school, which in many ways was back in the previous century at the time of Bram Stoker’s Gothic horror stories, if not with the 15^th century southern Romanian Prince on which his character was based.   It would be interesting to return to see how security is dealt with now, at a time when parents are led to believe that the “gypsies” in the wood aren’t now waiting for a young boy to happen upon them, but rather now out to actively get them!  

Suffice to say the woods, at least those “out of bounds” were deep, dark and foreboding, whilst those nearer to the safety of the school and within sound of the bell that ruled our lives, summoning us to lessons, meals, prep (homework), bed and all manner of other things, became our outdoor playground and in a move, somewhat forward thinking for an establishment such as this, part of our school uniform was regulation blue boiler suits and black gumboots, to allow us messy play out in the woods without getting our school uniforms dirty.  (This memory has just returned to me whilst writing this reminiscence, but more of that later!)  Interestingly, for the first time since leaving all those years ago I have just googled the school, found it still in existence, albeit with another name and their website now says: “Our buildings, park and woodland provide wonderful spaces for children to enjoy their educational journey, whether it is in playing in the woods, camping out, following the pioneering ‘Outdoor Leadership’ programme or developing a strong interest in their natural surroundings.”  So perhaps even back then the school was more progressive than I gave it credit for!

It was natural then, even if not seemingly planned, that the woods became our adventures, our explorations, our areas of discovery, (if only that the creepers growing over the trees behind the school kitchens could be lit from the groundman’s bonfire and smoked like a cigarette, with more often than not literally sickening consequences!!  I’m sure it accounts for why I have never had the urge to try smoking proper cigarettes!!), our brush with nature, our imaginary lost kingdoms, our outdoor classroom which we rushed out to as soon as the lessons we were supposed to be learning were finished, quite simply our freedom within our incarceration!!

It was then that I discovered what was to become “my tree,” which as far as I know, was not known at that time to any of my contemporaries, although I was to share it with one friend over the coming days and months.  On the face of it, certainly at ground level it wasn’t that special and now all these years later I’m not really sure what sort of a tree it was, although I have a strong feeling it was one of only a few Scot’s pine in an almost exclusively deciduous wood.  What for me made it special was its relatively easy climbability, once you figured out how to get up the first six feet or so, and as a fairly adventurous young boy prone to getting up trees and finding myself stuck and needing to be rescued by my Father, I did have a good eye for an easy ascent, that didn’t always work in reverse!!  This first six feet in itself was no easy task as I was a large child, not particularly agile and still to this day find it very difficult to pull myself up by my arms – it took me ages to master rope climbing in another memorable tree (but that’s another story!) and even at the peak of my fitness ten chin ups remained a distant dream!!

It was quite simply, although that in this case isn’t really the right word, a case of holding on to that short stub of a branch with one hand, another with the other hand, jumping up and struggling to find that first foot hold and walking up the next few whilst hanging upside down, getting your legs over the first branch and then by super human effort “walking” my hands up the next few hand holds, before finally sitting out of breath on the first significant branch, anxious to climb the easy steps above, oblivious of how I might get down and with my Father, my normal rescuer, on the other side of the world.

As I said the next part going up was so easy, like climbing a staircase and very quickly you were high enough to be out of sight from the surrounding woodland, climbing around my own woodland tower.  But, there was more to come, as still recklessly ignoring the inevitable descent, I climbed higher and higher until quite suddenly I was above the canopies of the surrounding trees, with a far reaching view that confirmed there was a great wide world out there and I was alone in the middle of nowhere, civilisation as I knew it was nowhere to be seen.  The feeling was one of immense elation, similar to that experienced when many years later walking out on the top of the Rockefeller Centre in New York and seeing the “world” of Manhattan stretching out before me, in both cases not only did it take my breath away it quite uncharacteristically rendered me speechless!   A glimpse perhaps of adventures to come, as in the years since, having managed the descent from my special tree on numerous occasions, the last jump down being the trickiest part, I have been lucky enough to travel to some of the amazing four corners of the world, with others on the list, once we have finished renovating the French house, with fine views of some stately trees, including a large mulberry tree in next door’s garden, where we are currently lucky enough to live.

Not only did this, my special tree, come to symbolise my window on the outside world, it also in a strange way intensified my feelings of loneliness, being separated by many miles from my family, the first few of which I could glimpse from my eyrie in the sky.  Thinking that my memories may have dulled over the years, I have just google mapped, or to be more precise, “satellite” this area of deepest Kent, and although the road passing the other side of the vast forest has been upgraded to a dual carriage way, the vastness I remembered wasn’t extended because of my young age, as often things seem bigger when you are younger, the school was indeed and remains largely surrounded by large mature trees with a huge tract of thick woodland behind, in the middle of which hopefully my special tree remains and may have been discovered by subsequent schoolboys, keen to glimpse the outside world.  Perhaps I should try to make a pilgrimage, as I’ve often said that trees and woodlands are my cathedrals and spiritual places.

Incidentally, just a month ago, my rescuer – my Father, died quite suddenly after a short illness, not only leaving an enormous gap in the lives of all who knew him, not least my Mother, his wife for 63 years, but also as one of the letters of sympathy said; “You will over the coming days, weeks and even years, find yourself having moments / memories of times past, I still do after 36 years!”  That I found is so profound, as I have found distant long forgotten memories such as this, often with quite tenuous links to my Father popping into my head, prompted by simple things like the Woodland Trust’s “share your favourite tree memories” and in writing this at least four others have come to mind, but those will have to wait for another time!!  

Roger M. Higgs

July 5^th 2013

Bart Simpson is bigger than Jesus!

And, before any hail and brimstone, bolts of lightning or indeed the derision from any bible bashers out there, let me explain: 

Sitting on a shelf above my desk, and keeping an eye on me, is a small china statue of adult Jesus, but sorry again to my more pious friends, no I haven’t seen the light, been converted or even re-born (reminds me of a little photo project I undertook a couple of years ago, so watch out for the next blog post!), it was quite simply a teeth crunching free gift, which I’ll explain in due cause.  Next to the “Good Shepherd,” all 30mm of him – I did say it was small, is a similar statue of Bart Simpson, coming in at 33.5mm, hence my claim above and then to rub salt in the wound and therefore outnumbering “Our Saviour” is a 33mm sized effigy of Bart’s classmate, Martin Prince.

An odd, some might say strange, collection of icons or idols but there simply for no other reason than to remind me, somewhat belatedly, to relate to you a rather simple and sadly now somewhat corrupted French Christmas custom.  La Fête des Rois, or Twelfth Night as it is known as in the UK, celebrates the arrival of the three Kings in Bethlehem to visit and bring gifts to the infant Jesus.  One French tradition on this day, is the serving of the Galette des Rois, a eggy pastry cake in which a fève or charm is hidden, in much the same way as our traditional Christmas pubs contained a silver sixpence.  The Galette comes complete with a golden crown, which sits on the top as it is served, and whoever gets the slice of cake containing the hidden fève is crowned king or queen for the day!  Traditionally the fève would be a simple bean or simply fashioned baby or other Christmas figure made in rough china, and it is gratifying as well as tooth crunching to find that this is still the case, at least in those galette’s that we sampled, and that they haven’t been plasticised.

But sadly, no doubt purely for commercial reasons, hard-headed business people have seen fit to substitute the bean or crude religious effigies with china Simpson’s figures, even annotated with TM (trademark) and © (copyright), in what to me is a step too far.  Many of you will know my views on the cynical and multi-million pound advertising campaigns and merchandising of things as diverse as Harry Potter teabags (although I have never read the books, I’m told tea is a vital ingredient!), through anatomically impossible incredibly expensive cheap plastic dolls, for which each Christmas a new range of must have accessories is colourfully advertised on Children’s TV (the ad-persons of the world are no strangers to peer pressure!), and the dolls can’t even stand up properly let alone sit comfortably in the latest open top sports car (they have to be open topped as the doll wouldn’t bend enough in the right places to get into a car with a roof!), to plastic ponies in pastel shades decorated with flowers and sporting impossibly long nylon manes.  With the last of these commercial items, a huge research budget, only belittled by the revenue forecasts that accompanied the business plan, found out that little girls liked pastel colours, flowers, horses and combing hair – so the My Little Pony was born, or rather cheaply moulded in plastic, packaged in large colourful boxes with lots of cellophane and endorsements, and sold at an incredible price.  But as little Cordelia has a large stable full of the rigid beasts including the latest “British Olympic Show jumping themed” pony, breaking somewhat with tradition and coloured white and red with a blue mane, it’s absolutely necessary for Persephone to go one better and have the whole equestrian team, despite not one of them looking fit and blithe enough to clear the lowest of jumps, for a start the legs don’t even bend!!  It’s that peer pressure raising its ugly head again, but then there is lots of soothing nylon hair there to groom!

But, back to Bart and Jesus Christ, an expression that I’m sure Bart’s father might use when comparing the two.  Although I’ve never managed a complete episode, having tried if only to search, in vain in my case, for the appeal, I can easily hear Bart’s Dad, Homer I think it might be, saying, when asked to compare the two heroes in this piece (BS and JC), and decide which is the biggest:  “Jesus Christ there’s no contest, ......... Bart of course!  That’s my boy!,” as Bart announces to anyone wishing to listen “Eat my Shorts!” totally drowning out JC’s quiet offer to wash the feet of a sinner or two.

Going back to the small china ornaments, looking again it seemed that just perhaps if you were to discount the plinths that the figures are standing on, Jesus might win by a short head, but sadly no, despite the bigger soapbox, Bart still just comes first, I guess simply reflecting that perhaps, with the help of some clever marketing perhaps Bart does indeed have a larger following, and JC perhaps needs to enlist the help of Saatchi and Saatchi!          

Was Born!

I was a lovely child, prone to stamping my foot and demanding a Bourbon biscuit, my favourite, when I knew there weren’t any in the house and 24 hour Tesco’s were years away.

But in my defence the family must take some of the blame, and although I’ve only now thought of it over fifty years later, perhaps there was another way to break the news to me when giving me my glass of bedtime milk than; “we haven’t any of your lovely, chocolaty, favourite, yummy Bourbon biscuits, have a rather plain and claggy* Rich Tea instead!” (* here I must confess to a little poetic licence as claggy is a Yorkshire term, I’m sure unknown in my family over half a century ago, but if you’ve ever eaten a Rich Tea biscuit, your teeth will know just what it means!!)

Then, there were the times, often in the car, when we would be driving somewhere and having a family conversation about all sorts of things, such as previous car journeys, holidays, playmates, parties (you get the gist of it) and I’d be attentively listening, still you must realise, strapped in my baby seat and wanting even then to be able to join in the conversation, I would make a simple remark like “I don’t remember that holiday.” or ask a simple question like “What present did we buy Auntie so and so at that party, I don’t remember?”  To which there would be a chorus of “You wouldn’t remember, you weren’t born!”

This, like the Bourbon biscuits, or lack of them, made me very angry and there would be more pouting and foot stamping accompanied by me shouting “Was born!”  A simple kindly explanation would have sufficed here, an early lesson on the passing of time and chronological order and the tantrum would have stopped!  But no!, my antics were simply laughed at, not with I hasten to add, and opportunities found no less to bait me and taunt me with “You weren’t born!,” for another good laugh at the reaction! It’s amazing I’ve turned out as level headed as I have really!!

Imagine my horror then to recently discover this picture taken of Bob Dylan back in 1965, a photo from what has arguably been regarded as one of the most famous music videos of all time, a promotional video for Subterranean Homesick Blues of which Get Born forms part of the lyric, a song that apparently so captivated John Lennon that he worried he would never be able to compete!, and with this lyric in mind prompted Pete Townsend of The Who fame, to liken hearing Dylan sing for the first time to being born!;

Dylan 1965

The song lyrics “Still crazy after all this years” (From the title track of Paul Simon’s fourth studio album, thank you google!) came to mind, as I flung down the newspaper I was reading and stormed off, not in a paddy, but eager to change and produce my altogether more mature response and email it to my earlier tormentors, to show I hadn’t been deeply affected at an early age!!   Unfortunately, it’s a good few years ago that I would have been able to replicate the hair, at least on the top of the head!!!

Higgs 2011

 

 

“If I should become a stranger, you know that would make me more than sad.”

Dougie MacLean, Scottish singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer

As I said in t’other blog (you can tell I’ve visited Yorkshire recently, where “tha noz tha's nowt so-queer as folk”, but maybe more about them another time when “our lass” isn’t watching!!), it’s been a while since anything has appeared here, and as it says in the title, part of the chorus of a wonderful song called Caledonia (about returning to Scotland), I’d hate to become a stranger!

So, for my return, in the words of “our lass,” her indoors or the trouble and strife; a little idle rambling or complete madness, albeit somewhat multilingual which I hope impresses you after my absence?!

What do they have in common?

We have started to recently visit a French friend to help us brush us our French; vocab, pronunciation, gender alignment (as regards le and la and un and une!) and the all important accents!!

Imagine my surprise then, when doing an exercise about music, musicians and musical instruments, when an everyday household, indeed kitchen object mysteriously thrust its way into the proceedings!

Suffice to say what do; Ringo Starr (The Beatles drummer for the youngsters amongst you!), Harry Potter who probably needs no introduction at all, regardless of age, due to “clever” advertising, Sir Simon Rattle (a famous conductor) and a hungry Frenchman all have in common?

Baffled as I was, it being the conductor in the exercise mentioned above?

Well, they are all in need of a baguette, in Ringo’s case a drumstick, Harry’s a wand, Simon’s a baton and the hungry Frenchman a loaf of bread.  Interestingly, when looking into this further in a weighty but somewhat old French dictionary, the loaf doesn’t get a mention, but several other meanings are listed:

a switch as previously used by a schoolteacher on errant pupils, a rod such as that used by Black Rod in the House of Commons, an usher in a church or indeed a water diviner, a ramrod for your blunderbuss (I did say it was an old dictionary!), the stick attached to a rocket, a glove stretcher and (answers on a postcard please, as this one leaves me lost for an explanation!), a clock (of stockings)!

It really isn’t surprising that we still feel that we, passer par les baguettes each time we leave the house and have to converse in French, and before you ask it’s not what we say as we near the boulangerie when we’re feeling a little peckish, it means to run the gauntlet!  I’m tempted to say it’s a fluke if you get it right:

Incidentally, Fluke can mean:

• A fish, and a flatworm.
• The end parts of an anchor.
• The fins on a whale's tail.
• A stroke of luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some more of life’s little mysteries!

·        Why do “Indestructible Socks” only come with a twelve month guarantee!

·        Why are “Stoned Prunes” not guaranteed, they always work for me!!

·        Why in all the years of taking children away on school trips did I never have one be sick on the coach, if when they started to feel queasy, I sat them on a folded Daily Telegraph!!!  I have my own thoughts, but I’ll leave you to think up your own, again answers on a postcard please.

On this last point I’m reminded of two things; Spike Milligan’s cure for seasickness – sit under a tree!!  And, a recent article in the Kate’s Farm series in the Telegraph Magazine (I must point out here I don’t actually take The Telegraph, but “read” it when visiting someone close to me – I tried to explain, but they’re not for turning!!), talks about how she can merge two colonies or bees after one has lost its queen.  On the advice of their bee expert they put a sheet of The Daily Telegraph “on top of the brood box of the hive with the queen, poked a few holes in the paper and put the other hive on top of it.!  Apparently, “Each colony has its own distinct odour, and bees will fight with those from outside their own colony.  But by the time the bees have chewed through the newspaper, the odours of both colonies have combined and they believe they are one happy family.”

A week later it had worked, the paper was shredded and the bees happy with the stronger colony having a better chance of surviving the winter.  The article attributes the success to their bee expert and a copy of “everyone’s favourite broadsheet,” their words not mind!  Mine are more along the lines of the odour of said daily newspaper, or should that be stench! Add your “answers” to the postcards mentioned above!!   

Did you know?

Kit Kat is one of Nestle’s, and Rowntree’s of York before that, top selling brands, with 150 consumed worldwide every second!!!

And, the fact I’ve recently been in York is a pure coincidence!  This came from an article where certain types of Kit Kat have been recalled as there is a risk they might contain pieces of plastic, and there’s me thinking that a Kit Kat is one of very few everyday necessities that hasn’t been plasticised (e.g. car headlights, kitchen chopping boards, noodles as in Pot Noodles – I’m sure you get my drift!), although I’m sure they are smaller than when I used to buy them as a child!! 

And finally!

After our long journey back from the UK after our stint in the Pet Shop (watch this space!), my profound thought of the moment!

“The hill is steep but the summit is near”

as I climbed our steep staircase and sunk thankfully into my own bed, there’s nothing like it!

*********************************

So, there you are, just a little something to make contact and reassure those of you that have missed me, that I’m still here and functioning “normally” or should that be just as mad as ever!!