Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Oh dear. VM has suffered an outage…just as first footy match of season starts. Full pixelation on TV screens.

 

Virgin media ?????

 

Totally agree about the pollinators @pete. Wasps get such a bad press. I have them nesting in the garden every year - in various sites. This year they picked quite an odd one, as I reckoned it would have been wetter than I thought they'd like, but they've been very successful. Loads of them tootling around. There was an item on our brilliant radio prog. [Saturday mornings - Out of Doors] last week [?] and the chap gave all sorts of statistics which were really interesting. I just wish people would understand that it isn't just the 'cuddly bees' that do the work.
Last week, I had a look at the little site the wasps had used, although I couldn't get into the actual site itself - as it seems to be right under the edge of a raised bed behind the shed, and I'd forgotten that I'd used old roofing tiles for that little corner, so it's probably been quite dry. Once I move the bags of leaves/troughs/pots etc next to it, I'll see what it's like. They're always beautiful.

 

Wasps are nesting in our polytunnel, this year attaching themselves to the plastic covers over my shelves I use for seed trays. I leave them alone but still get stung when I go in to water. 5 stings in a couple minutes really made my hand swell and throb, despite anti-histamines and cream.

I know they like paper so, for next year, I shall try putting a sheet of cardboard over part of the polytunnel frame so they're higher up and feel safer. As you say @fairygirl the structures are beautiful.

 

So sorry, shouldn’t used abbreviations. Will try harder

 

I had made a little purpose built box for bees many years ago, after I'd seen them nesting in the hog house I'd made. Needless to say, they didn't use the new box, but the wasps did! The wasps then used the hog house when I'd moved it to the front garden, but they also came into the house through the little vents in the soffits. They weren't a problem there fortunately, as only a few got into the house, but I felt sorry for them as they couldn't find their way back out. Older daughter, whose bedroom was mostly affected, tried to help them but wasn't always successful.
I kept the nest from that year for ages. It was quite magnificent.
I like watching them scrape the wood from fences etc, for making their nests, and having a drink at the pond. I'm lucky that I don't really get stung by wasps or bees, despite having to sort out the shed last year when the bees were nesting underneath. I kept apologising to them - maybe that helped! Hope your stings have improved @Obelix-Vendée.

 

I have never watched Strictly, though it is hard to miss all the hype. Anyway, I see this yr's contestants have been announced - 6 females, 7 males ... and one drag act, a parody of a woman clearly being counted as one.

 

I did a silly thing yesterday, I picked my first ripe Tomato, put it in my
pocket and forgot about it, later I found it squashed!!!

 

Altho allergic to both bee and wasp stings , I like both and if they get trapped indoors I use a glass and sheet of stiff paper to pick them up and release them. Always had the little grey/black ground nesting bees in the garden but not seen this year. I confess to swatting the large flies at times if they come indoors as they circle round me and drive me round the bend with their noise. Outside I leave them to it.

 

OH has done that with an egg @john558 . Double yuk.

They don't always balance the numbers. What I find interesting about drag queens @ViewAhead is how they know so much than the average woman about make-up and glamwear. Just the thing for a show like Strictly. Mascara and lip gloss are my usual limit.

 

My allotment neighbour had a wasp nest in the middle of his Red currants last year. The general advice from the other allotmenteers was to douse it with petrol and burn them but he is very much like me and thinks that wasps are fascinating, amazing creatures. I, before I had time to think, suggested I would move the nest for him and I did one night in a carrier bag. It was about the size of a grapefruit when I moved it and by the end of summer it was over a meter in circumference.

The problem is we see honeybees as amazing pollinators and useful creatures that we overlook the fact that they aren't particularly great for our native bees and pollinators because they out compete them.

 

I do agree that wildfires are annoyingly linked to climate change when the fact is that most are started by man but I do think it's important that the two are linked. It is climate change that is causing the conditions for them to become worse (prolonged dryness and in LA's recent fires, consistent strong winds), so that when some idiot starts one, they do become more serious than they would in the past. It is also worrying that we don't really manage forests, heath etc like we did in the past. Native people would have small controlled fires which removed alot of the material that causes such extreme fires today and that simply isn't done anymore. Another example is in Australia where they plant eucalyptus around housing developments for shade and wonder why all the houses get destroyed.