Birds and Bees

I saved a bee today, have you?

It seems like almost every morning this past week, we've found an exhausted bee in our living room. I suppose now that the weather is pretending to be alright-ish for what we try to call summer (jeans and sweater, anyone?) we have the patio doors open a lot more than usual. If these bees get trapped inside, they're out of luck since we don't have (m)any flowering plants inside apart from one orchid. By the time I get ready to go to work, the trapped bee must be getting hungry or something, but by the time I find them, there's hardly any life left in them.

My experiment with sugar water and a bee on a dish probably went wrong a bit as the bee insisted on turning onto its back and therefore getting its wings wet. I think it's a very difficult thing to fly away with wet wings, but then again, I'm no bee and I can't fly even if I tried.

This afternoon we found another one on the floor in the living room, so I lifted it onto a scrap of paper and took it outside. Since nothing much is flowering with big flowers in our garden at them moment I didn't have a bee-buffet waiting, but we managed to make do with what we had. Mr Bee seemed to enjoy it anyway.





Just as I went back inside and closed the door, Mrs Mus flew in and checked out the area before flying straight into the hedge, where she lives.



All in all, not a bad afternoon in an urban garden.

Cold Mountain, and possibly some cold mountains.

I did it, yet again, once more, I can't be stopped. Before finishing any of my other projects (remember the black shirt, the stitches-on-the-bridge project, various dresses, and new bolero project, the crochet bags? Anyone?) I've started on another project. This one has some recent pictures.

It started out looking like this:


But now it looks a lot like this, only a little longer:


It's called the Cold Mountain Stole and I'm liking it muchly (sic) so far. Using bigger needles made me get mom to get me some more yarn. I'll need it.

The other knitting project has no pictures yet, but I've passed the halfway point. Progress slowed down because of the shawl though. This is not a good thing.

In good news, I'm no longer doing corrections at work next week, it's Friday and that's always good, I'm getting my hair done in the morning (9am, not so good) and a certain someone might be coming over soonish. That should be jolly dandy indeed.

In other news, the Slasher Book Club Book, Afraid is very amusing to read. To paraphrase:

"After getting away from the psycho killers, the sheriff found himself trapped in one of his brother's bear traps while trying to save his niece and her son from the mad psycho killers. In a moment of questionable genius, the sheriff cuts off the flesh on his leg, breaks the bone, just like his father did when trapped under a tree, only to find out the leg actually has 2 bones in it."

In the words of the delectable Hugh Grant:

Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, (cont'd)



Oh gosh it makes me laugh. People think I'm weird. (Score!)

Dear BBC,

I am a daily user of your website, even though I am not located in the UK. I pay my cable company good money to watch BBC1 and BBC2, and I use the UK website for news, listings and background information on your shows. I am now forced onto the international website which doesn't list the channels I watch and it doesn't look like picking London as location (we get the local London news, so it seemed appropriate) is doing me any good.

Frankly, I'm pretty upset, and I'd like to use some stronger words to impress my feelings onto whomever gets to read this, but "that's not the way my mother raised me." I'm sure it's not your fault. However, that doesn't stop me from venting in more public places, not that you'd notice.

I understand the issue with not showing me iPlayer, (I don't but I accept it), I have a bigger issue with not showing me Springwatch webcams, but not letting me stay on the UK website reeks of a 'Close our borders'-kind of strategy I didn't expect from a self-respecting Broadcaster like your good selves. Where I live, only peroxide politicians do that kind of thing.

I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm not angry, just very disappointed, because I'm not. I'm flippin' angry.

Please fix this obvious error, or help me fix it, since your "Help" doesn't exactly cater for my needs.

PS. If this has anything to do with Windows or Firefox updates, it's obviously not the BBC's fault, but I'd still like some help fixing it.

Dreams....

...can come true, so they say.

*IF* (and that's a very, very, very big if) everything goes according to my plan, I get to dream a bit about floors and wall paint. However, I'm not the one doing the doing, so the dreams will have to wait for a bit longer.

Golly, another day day of keeping fingers crossed. This is getting painful.

Team VET came 16th in the World Championships. I wonder how they did in the nationals that were held this weekend. Very disappointed with not being able to go. Taking on extra work isn't always a very good plan, plus lack of funding seems to be a perpetual reason for not having as much fun as possible.

Keep those fingers crossed.

Here's a teaser pic from last weekend.



Yes, we are *that* good at building constructions with fabric, poles and lines.