Long overdue for a trim

There has been quite a bit of coverage and comment in the media about the impact of no hairdressers or barbers since the beginning of the lockdown.  There are on-line tutorials for DIY haircuts, celebrity commercials for self applied colourings to cover roots or grey and a stream of social media videos showing home haircut failures.

I took the plunge myself a few weeks ago and got TP to clip my hair, but it isn't just the human population that are in dire need of a haircut ...

Marauder, Whiffler and Dog #3 are looking very shaggy indeed.  They were last clipped the day before our wedding and that was almost four months ago.  The weather is forecast to get well in to the eighties* this week and a three inch long coat is not going to be much fun for them.

I used to clip them all quite regularly, but for the last couple of years we have been using a Dog Grooming Training School in Stratford-upon-Avon.  To cut a long story short we met a drunk man in Alcester who managed, at the third or fourth attempt,** to explain that he had a poodle and got it clipped for free in Stratford.  After a bit of web searching we located the Grooming School and learnt that standard poodles are in demand for training dog groomers due to their size and the complexity of their clip.

Standard poodles are not that common and consequently the grooming school welcomed our three with open arms.  They charge £10 per dog for a bath, groom and clip which is less than a sixth of what we would pay elsewhere.  As a result they have been models for a couple of years and get a very cheap haircut ever four to six weeks.

However, the grooming school has been closed during the lockdown too and today it was my turn to make a start on the dogs.  Whiffler was first for the treatment and I have clipped him completely back, removing his topknot and longer hair on his ears.  After four months he had become quite matted and taking his coat back to 3mm in length is the best approach.  Hopefully it will be just the right length for a lamb clip  by the time the grooming school reopens.

I had got the worst of Whiffler's coat removed by dinner time.  I'll tidy his feet and face up tomorrow morning before choosing my next victim.

Marauder, these clippers have your name on them!

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* Fahrenheit obviously!

**  He was very pissed!

Weekend round-up

 Saturday: Hit 'n Miss

After my usual leisurely start to Saturday morning, I dragged the lawn mower from the shed and, unsurprisingly, mowed the lawn with it.  I needed to get this task out of the way as Grubby Mark and I had a reservation at the Cotswold Shooting Ground.

An early lunch was eaten and we were at the ground and ready to shoot just before one o'clock.  It was an eighty bird card* and it was bloody difficult.  It is fair to say my shooting ranged from sublime to ridiculous and my miserable total was 26/80. 

At my best I shot a perfect ten on one stand and a reasonable 6/10 on another, but overall I did not do well.  I later found out that a very experienced friend, who would normally shoot in to the 80%s only managed to hit 55 of the very tricky clays.  I took some consolation that it must have been a challenging shoot, but I definitely need a lot more practice.

I headed home and spent the late afternoon in the garden inspecting the hives.  I was joined by TP's girlfriend, who was quite keen to see the workings of a honey bee colony.  She seemed to really enjoy the experience and by the time we working our way through the last of the four hives, she even managed to spot the queen among the tens of thousands of workers on the brood combs.

Sunday: More bees!

Another leisurely start to the day and then 30% and I headed out around the Three Miler with the dogs.  It was a pleasant enough amble, but encounters with friends along the way, meant that this hour long walk took the best part of two hours this morning.

The longer than usual walk meant that the three hives in Kathy's garden didn't get inspected until the early afternoon.

I took a nucleus hive** with me as a precautionary measure.  One of the hives had been looking "swarmy" for the past month.  I had been doing my best to deter them, but on every previous inspection I had been greeted with the sight of multiple queen cups dotted around the brood nest.  Today was no different and one frame had three or four well developed queen cells hanging from the lower bars of the brood frame.

Locating the queen was a bit of a challenge as the frames were crowded with workers, but I eventually found her and removed her to the nucleus hive.  I added a few more frames of brood, shook in plenty of workers and closed up the nuc.  Once I'd finished the inspection I would take this with me and put it on a hive stand in the garden at home.***

The second hive was doing reasonably well.  There still isn't much nectar being brought in but there were plenty of workers ready and waiting for the Summer flowers.  Having ensured this colony was fine I headed to the third hive.  Earlier in the week Kathy had 'phoned to let me know that the third hive had swarmed.  I had been expecting this as this was yet another colony that could not be deterred from reproducing.

As I lifted the queen excluder my attention was drawn to a bee in the corner of the hive, well away from the brood nest.  It was a small queen.  I assume that it is an unmated, virgin queen that has hatched now the old queen has swarmed.  With warm weather forecast for the upcoming week, I hope she will have successful mating flights and soon be laying her first generation of daughters.

So Sunday ended with another colony of bees in the garden, but this entry wouldn't be complete without mention of Father's Day.  Earlier in the day TP presented me with a cucumber and a wrapped present.  He certainly knows his Father well.  I instantly got the joke and removed the gift wrap to reveal a bottle of Hendricks gin.****

I shall enjoy that.

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* The number of clay targets available to shoot.  

**  A small portable hive that can be used for catching swarms or taking a split or shook swarm from a hive.

*** If I left the nuc in Kathy's garden the most of the workers would simply return to the original hive leaving the queen without a sustainable colony.  This is because the workers have incredible navigation skills and can range over a mile from their hive and still make their way back with their foraged nectar and pollen.  By moving the nuc to an unknown location, the workers will reorientate themselves and return to the new hive.

****  A slice of cucumber compliments it perfectly.

Clock watching

The title of today's Journal entry pretty much sums up my day.

I had delivered this week's planned deliverables by close of business yesterday and, consequently, had very little on my professional plate for today.  I did finally managed to finish off the five minute job, * but even that took a couple of attempts.  

As there is not much else to report I may as well explain.  The final requirement clarifications were provided by the Project Managers early this morning and this clearly demonstrated that the second and final deliverable was something that the Sales Team could manage without my help.

I sent over an email with all of the relevant information and evidence and advised that I planned to cancel the request for my support.  The Sales Guy promptly responded asking a question that clearly indicated that he hadn't bothered to read the attachments in the email.

I sent him a polite reply directing him to the relevant attachments and fortunately heard nothing more before the end of the day.  

Now, after re-reading this, I may seem to be a bit of a jobsworth, but I have actually spent the past two days doing work the Sales Guy should have done before he even requested my support.  It is his job to clarify the requirements and, if he had done that, this activity might have taken an hour or two rather than the best part of a full day spread over three.  

It is a sad fact that the Sales Guys I work with aren't very keen on doing anything other than schmooze with the customer and take bonuses for poorly contracted business deals with questionable profitability.**  Christ knows what they are doing*** now that Covid-19 restrictions have stopped them visiting the customer?

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*  The fact that I have now been wittering on about this five minute job since Wednesday pretty much proves my point; there is no such thing as a five minute job. 

**  My colleagues and I do our best to make them profitable, but then the horse trading starts and crappy deals get done!

*** Most of them are wankers, so they are probably exercising their right arms at home.

A long memory can come in useful

Yesterday's "5 minute job" was first on my to-do list when I opened up the laptop this morning.

It was crystal clear that the Sales Guy had no intention of providing the information needed, so I had trawled through my memory banks and come up with a plan.  At the end of 2018 I had been involved in a Programme that had included work directly related to yesterday's request.  Better than that, I had remembered the names of the Project Managers that had managed the implementation and had even located their status reports for the relevant projects.

It was a matter of ten minutes work to knock up a quick email asking for the details that I needed.

At this point it is probably worth pointing out that sometimes I have problems remembering what I had for dinner, let alone the fascinating intricacies of my working day.  However overall my memory is very good and, for some strange reason, I can recall salient points from stuff that happened months or even years ago.  

Back to today's problem, once again The Gods were benevolent and the Project Managers provided the information needed within a couple of hours.  By the end of the day I had already managed to close out part of the request.  Hopefully tomorrow will see a way forward with the rest of the work.

The other major event from the working day was that I managed to sail the crumbling hulk of Colleague R's latest solution through an internal review without it sinking.  In fact it took no cannon fire at all and we can now tart it up with colourful bunting and pennants and pass it over to the customer for them to ransack.*

A week ago I mentioned that I try to avoid writing about my work in The Journal as it isn't very interesting. Unfortunately I was reasonably occupied by it today, leaving little time for anything else.  The weather didn't play ball either.  It poured with rain for a lot of the day and I didn't even get out for a walk with the dogs.

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*  I should add that our customer is keen for us to develop this solution.  They even may want us to build it, but, as soon as it is up and running smoothly, they plan to take it off us and run it themselves. 

There is no such thing as a five minute job

As I approach the end of my second decade developing IT services solutions, I should know that there is no such thing as a five minute job.  So, why on earth I did I volunteer to pick up something and assume that it would be straightforward and simple?

On initial examination it looked like all I needed to do was act as a post man.  I took the requirements* from the Sales Guy and passed them across to a team of specialists who would provide the necessary quotes.  All I would then have to do is pass the quotes back to the sales team.

What could possibly go wrong? 

I even had a precautionary call with the Sales Guy to ensure that there were no hidden issues or problems that were likely to leap out and bite me.  "No, no" he reassured me "it really is that simple". 

These words are still ringing in my ears.

Today I discovered that the requirements I was given are flaky at best and the Sales Guy has responded with a long winded "don't ask me" when I asked for clarifications.

The don't ask me email came in late in the day and it looks like I am going to have to use my native wit and cunning to drive this forward.  Unfortunately I was running low on "wit and cunning" by four o'clock, so I took Whiffler and #3 for a walk instead.

Hopefully my "W 'n C" reserves will be restored overnight.

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*  He had even used the correct form and had filled in all the fields

A rumble overhead

A change in the weather had been predicted and, as 30% headed out to work at lunchtime, large drops started to fall from a leaden sky.  Within minutes it was absolutely hammering down with rain and a colossal thunderclap sounded overhead.

Unfortunately I was working at my desk and missed the theatrics of the storm.  Instead I had to suffer an hour long call with a half witted project manager who seems to think that I will support his project but not charge my time to his budget.  I requested the budgetary codes on his call, but I was surprised to find that he had forgotten to record that in his minutes.  Ah well, it was a simple matter to "reply all" commenting that he seemed to have forgotten to record my request for the relevant codes. *

The working days went reasonably well and I was able to head out for a walk with Whiffler and Dog#3 at about four in the afternoon.  

Remembering the lunchtime storm, I collected a precautionary hat and jacket before heading out in to the lanes.  It soon became apparent that this wet weather apparel was redundant.  The weather was hot, sunny and humid and the coat was soon tied around my waist.  Although the rumble of thunder was ever present, the storms stayed away and the walk was a dry one.

During the walk Dog#3 performed her usual antics and it is one of these that I'll recount today.  When the poodles are young they delight in play and will constantly practice their instinctive hunting behaviours in preparation for running down imaginary Bison, Elk or Deer with the rest of the pack.

When Whiffler was a pup he was an absolute nightmare for hassling Marauder in this way.  As soon as she broke in to a trot or a run, he charged alongside her attempting to bite her legs and trip her up.  He's now approaching his sixth birthday and, as a mature dog, that behaviour is long behind him.  

However, Dog#3 is barely eighteen months old and what goes around comes around. Now it is her turn to hassle Whiffler.  It needs to be mentioned that Whiffler is a big boy.  The youngster is barely half his weight and much shorter in the leg and body.  This does put her at a disadvantage when Whiffler is running, but she is also quite smart ...

There are a couple of fields on the walk where Whiffler squeezes under the metal gates to take a quick nose among the stalks of the growing barley.  #3 doesn't follow, but waits at the gate.  She knows that Whiffler needs to creep under the gate to rejoin us and, at that point, is unable to defend himself from her practice attacks.

It is quite comical to see the stand-off with a dog on either side of the gate.  Whiffler waits for #3 to follow me up the road, so he can get under the gate without being attacked and #3 waits for Whiffler to duck under the gate, so she can pounce.

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*  I'm sure this was an oversight. **

**  Like fuck was it an oversight!  The little shit wants me to work for free.

More Socialising

I've spent more time socialising* in the past twenty four hours than I have for a good few months.

I had a vaguely annoying day at work. Don't ask me why, because I can't explain ... it was just a case of most of the things I had to do annoyed me.  I really wasn't in the mood.

By four o'clock I'd had enough and wandered away from the laptop.  I headed out to the garage and collected a few tools for a long overdue job.  The radiator in the downstairs lavatory has a few rust spots and it was definitely time to address them.

Now it is fair to say that I am not overly keen to do anything more to The Pile, but, at the same time, I really need a project to occupy me.  I was talking to 30% about this a few days ago and we both agreed that we love it here, but are now ready to say goodbye and take on a something new. 

Anyway, my desire to do something with my hands obviously outweighed my lack of DIY motivation and I found myself grinding back the rust spots with a Dremel, applying a rust inhibitor and, a few hours later, a touch up with enamel paint.  It's far from perfect, but it looks a whole lot better than the rust pocked surface that I started with.

Now, back to the socialising,  30% had invited BBQ Dave and Janet over for a cup of tea and a natter.  We hadn't seen them since the Lockdown started as they had been conscientiously self-isolating due to BBQ Dave's age.  It was a lovely afternoon, so tea was cancelled and beer was brought out as a far superior replacement.  The conversation was the usual mix of shooting, politics and the BBC's crappy news service and it was close to seven o'clock before they left.

Later in the evening, as I was cleaning my paintbrush I espied Doctor H parking up in the lay-by outside.  He had been called upon to perform vital Parish duties.  It seems that an overhanging bush needs pruning and he was heading up the High Street with Secateurs and Loppers to tame the aggressive shrub.  However, he seemed far more keen to chat and we had an amusing chunter about life, bees and everything before he headed up the footpath to perform arboreal surgery.

So, that was Monday; an irritating day at work followed by a productive and pleasant evening.

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*  Proper face to face sitting down and having a chat socialising, not your contrived, pre-prepared, plastic wrapped, additive filled social media substitute for socialising that I have had to endure since the back end of March. 

Getting back to normal?

Sunday evening found me gently snoring on the sofa. It's fair to say that we'd had quite a busy weekend.

Saturday

Saturday morning started with a run over to the Cotswolds.  I met up with Grubby Mark at the Hailes shooting ground, where we attempted 96 sporting clays. I had a frustrating round hitting only 40 "birds".  What irritated me most was that I was doing well on the challenging stands, but missing the more straightforward clays.  I'm obviously out of practice.

Back at home I ran around the lawn with the mower before putting on my bee suit and checking the hives in the garden.  They are all in a reasonable state, but it is apparent that there is still very little nectar available to forage.

I was pleased to see that my approach with a particularly troublesome hive seems to have been spot on.  The queen in this hive had been able to get through the queen excluder and lay up in the supers.  After giving this some thought I wondered if she was coming to the end of her laying life.  This notion was reinforced by what appeared to be supercedure queen cells;  these are produced when the workers become aware of a failing queen.  For the past few weeks I have left the hive well alone and, today, decided to take a look.  I couldn't see the queen, but there was a single frame of larvae and eggs.  This suggests that the original queen has been replaced and her daughter is now in residence.

As the afternoon cooled, 30% and I took a wander around the Three Miler with the dogs before collapsing on the sofa with a gin.

Sunday

With the slight easing of Social Distancing, we had arranged a barbecue for the afternoon.  This meant that the morning was filled with chores and preparations.  

First on the list was preparing two chickens for my barbecue speciality; beer can chicken.   Once the chickens had been prepped and the barbecue had been dragged out in to the sun, I headed down the road to inspect the hives in Kathy's garden.  The hives were much the same as those at home; good sized colonies waiting for a decent nectar flow.

I was home in time to get the charcoal lit and thirty minutes later I set the chickens on the grill to roast.  I then had enough time to tidy myself up before our guests* arrived.  We had a splendid few hours sat in the sunny garden; filling our faces and drinking plenty of wine.  It was so nice to be able to just sit, talk and joke naturally after the preceding weeks of Facebook and WhatsApp messages.

30% and I imbibed liberally and we both hit the sofa for a couple of hours after our guests left ... The tidying up can wait until Monday morning.

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* Grubby Sue, Grubby Mark, Bubbles and Robyn

That Friday feeling

It's the end of the working week and I've the uncommon feeling of having made significant progress this week.  An approval, that Colleague R had suggested would be challenging to obtain, turned up on Friday afternoon and we are now preparing for our Review call next week.

I would have liked to have celebrated with an early finish, but I had a call in the late afternoon and Marauder* and I could only manage a short walk as drizzle fell from an overcast sky.

I'm also chuffed to report that I have managed to catch another rat in the shed where I used to keep the chickens' feed.  What better way to start the weekend than with the death of rodent scum.

The end of the working week got me thinking about how people are using instant messaging, email and conferencing calls to stay in touch during the Covid-19 lockdown.  At the start of Social Distancing, I was quite happy to stay in touch using these apps and tools.  

However, as time has gone on, I've become less inclined to participate and I think I have worked out why ...  These tools are exactly the same as the ones I use at work and my social life has moved from being informal get togethers and shared meals to wretched alerts on my 'phone that interrupt my non-working life without thought to whether I want to talk to anyone or not.

Basically lockdown has meant that our friends now have access to more of my time than I really want to share with them and I am feeling somewhat resentful.  I know that this might seem selfish and awful, but I am busy at work and need time for me, time for the family and time for our friends.  At the moment I feel that Covid-19 has given everyone license to eat in to my personal and family time using methods that are very similar to interruptions at work.  

Perhaps they should read this.  They might understand why it sometimes takes me a week to reply, or not at all, as the case may be.

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*  TP's girlfriend has popped up for the day, and possibly an overnight stay, so they walked Whiffler and Dog #3** earlier in the day.

**  I really must give her a proper alias.

It would be a shame to waste it

I do try to avoid moaning about work in The Journal, as it doesn't make the most interesting of reads.  Also, for confidentiality reasons, I need to be quite vague about what I am up to and, reading back over previous years' entries, even I can't work out what I was moaning about at least half of the time!

These are two very  good reasons for avoiding the subject of work, although I will mention that I am finally making progress with colleague R.  He has finally managed to get his head out of his arse and focus on the task at hand.  He is still making mountains out of proverbial molehills, failing to see the wood for the trees and and having problems sorting the wheat from the chaff,* but, with the assistance of Tel and me, he has finally produced a passable, draft service definition document.

The next steps will be to issue it out to the wider team for review.  They will immediately ignore this request and ask stupid questions on next Thursday's call.

Putting work to one side, I'll  now get to the title of today's entry.  I was out snapping pictures of the dog roses on the Three Miler yesterday and I found another which I quite liked.  As it says at the top of the page "it would be a shame to waste it".

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* This list of aphorisms might seem like overkill, but they really do so neatly sum up the behaviour of this chap.  Now I do tend to be a "stop fucking around and get on with it" sort of chap, so you can imagine how close I have come to going ballistic with this dithering, procrastinating idiot over the past couple of months.

The thing about bubbles ...

is that they are ephemeral.  Enjoy them whilst they float above you, but be aware that they will burst.

Today we had a couple of calls regarding house sales and purchases.  It appears that our prospective buyers are still very keen, but not yet able to make an offer.  We also learnt that the owner of the cottage we fell in love with has accepted a cash offer from another buyer.

It looks like 30% will be scouring RightMove* to draw up another shortlist this evening.

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*  A UK property selling website

Dog Roses

As a regular walker of the local three mile loop, I'm reasonably aware of the local flora.  Dog walking gets me out around the lanes and bee keeping nudges me to keep an eye on what is flowering.*

I mentioned the "June gap" at the weekend; a period in the UK beekeeping season when, for a few weeks, there is a limited amount of nectar bearing flowers.  As I wander around the Three Miler I tend to survey the hedges and verges, looking for signs of Summer flowers.

One thing that has caught my eye over the past week is the huge amount of dog roses climbing up through the high, hawthorn hedges.  There are always a few to be seen, but this year they are absolutely splendid.  Their pink and white blooms can be seen every few feet on the sunnier parts of the walk.  I don't ever recall such a prolific flowering before, perhaps it is as a result of the warm, sunny spring?

A few bramble flowers are starting to appear too, hopefully the weather will soon improve and the bees will be back out foraging.

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*  My degree also had a significant amount of botany studies. Funnily enough, if you asked me, I would have always said that I was more interested in zoology,  but it seems that I am a closet botanist too.

Just stuff

Today started with a decent cup of freshly ground coffee, the first in several weeks.  Actually that's not quite accurate.  Today started with me letting the dogs out.  They desecrated the lawn while I liberated the chickens from their coop.  I then wandered over to check my rat trap and was surprised to see that I had actually caught one.  The realist in me knows that I have likely barely made a dent in the local population* ...  Only then did I get my cup of freshly ground coffee. 

The working day was quiet and, after discussing pricing with one of our Sales team, I did little other than clean my shotgun, complete on-line training and chat with a couple of colleagues.

There was also a change to the routine here at The Pile as TP started a new job at a distribution company over in Worcester.  It is warehouse work and is not well paid, but at least it provides him wth a regular income and gives his day structure and focus until his preferred line of work starts up again.**  His hours are 2.00 pm until 10.00, so it looks like I will be walking the dogs on my own from now on. 

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*  This was proved later in the day when I went to remove the carcass and saw a youngster scuttle across the shed floor.

** TP graduated from USW, Cardiff with a 1st Class Honours Degree in Sound Engineering last year.  We are both immensely proud of him.  Even before he had graduated he had managed to sow and nurture the seed of a career as a freelance sound engineer.  Just before the lockdown he had landed a place with a national program that helps to develop the skills and talent and invest in the future of the UK screen industry.  He had recently landed a three month contract on a big production through this program only to see it postponed as a result of Covid-19.

Defrosting the microwave

Item #1 on today's agenda was inspecting the bees.  

The weather has been cool and showery over the past week and, unsurprisingly, the bees have not been flying as much as they would in warmer weather.  I waited until the day had brightened somewhat, but the hives were still packed with bees as I examined the frames.  This made it a challenge to find queen cups or cells, let alone the queens themselves.  

The inspections went reasonably well, but it was apparent that the the bees had been relying on their stores rather than foraged nectar.*  The frames of stores that surround the brood nests had, mostly, been emptied to keep the colony sustained over the past seven days.  I'm not concerned, as there is ample honey in the supers to keep them going.

After checking on the bees, 30% and headed out in to the garden to deal with a vermin problem ... Over the past few weeks we had noticed that something had been chewing holes in the poultry food sacks.  These are kept in what, until recently, had been a vermin proof store, so it was time to investigate.  The little shed was emptied and 30% dived in to sweep up.  She soon called out that she had found rat droppings.  At this point I suggested that she should retreat, so that we could check that the rat wasn't still there.

I started looking for rat runs and, as I looked around the roof space, I saw a beady eye looking back at me.  Neither of us fancied having a startled rat jumping out at us, so a length of cane was deployed to persuade the verminous, little sod to vacate the premises.  We then spent an hour, or so, clearing up the shed and relocating the food to a rat proof metal bin.  With the poultry food gone, a couple of traps were set, although I didn't hold much hope of success;  they are very clever animals.

There's not much else to report, apart from the fact that I finally got my arse in to gear and descaled the coffee machine this evening.  I love to start the day with a cup of proper coffee ... A black Americano made with an espresso machine and, preferably, from freshly ground Old Brown Java coffee beans.

I have a little Gaggia classic and it makes a great cup of coffee, but it is a complete faff to descale.  It needs doing every couple of months and the process can take a good couple of hours.  This necessary chore is lovingly referred to as "defrosting the microwave" in the panoply of nonsense I spout as I grow older.

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*  Here in the UK there is a phenomenon called the"June gap" where nectar sources diminish during this month and then increase again from July through to September.

A possible buyer?

We had a viewing scheduled for eleven o'clock this morning, so the hours before were spent tidying up and TP and I took the dogs out for a walk shortly before the viewers arrived.

After a twenty minute wander around the local playing fields, we headed back to The Pile and guessed that the viewing was still in progress, based on the unfamiliar car parked outside.  We sat out in the back garden with the dogs to avoid interrupting 30%'s sales pitch.

A short while later the potential buyers came out to see the garden and it was clear that they absolutely loved the house and neither of us will be surprised if an offer is forthcoming in the next few days.

There are, however, a few flies in this sweet smelling unction ...  They have yet to sell their property and are going to need to borrow* to buy The Pile.  It might happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

They were incredibly keen and even asked if the woman's mum and dad could pop over to take a look from the outside. We were happy to oblige and let them view the inside too ... after all, the bank of mum and dad might be involved in the financing.

Later in the afternoon TP was out in the kitchen making up a batch of Halloumi.  He called me over and we could see that the viewers had returned and had parked up outside and were talking and gesturing at the outside of the house ... as I said, they seem quite keen.

That is the big news for Saturday,  I did head over to the Cotswold Shooting Ground at Childswickham for 100 sporting clays.  Bubbles had shot earlier in the day with a mutual friend, so I had a sort of blind date with a chap from Bromsgrove for the 13.55 pm slot.**

I shot appallingly and ended up with 36/100 on my card.  My best stand was an 8 and my worst was a 1.  I checked my blood sugar as I prepared to drive home and saw that it had been low for most of the time I was shooting ... I always shoot badly with low blood glucose.***

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*  They are in a two bedroomed flat valued at £210K.  Personally, I doubt that they own it outright, so my guess is that they will need to be borrowing the fat side of half a million.

**  The shooting grounds used to operate on a "turn up with a bunch of mates and just get on with it approach".  Covid-19 has put the mockers on that and they are now only allowing pairs of shooters, with pre arranged start times to control numbers at the grounds. 

*** Other excuses include; "it was windy today" and "a lot of the targets were edge on" ... actually there are several volumes of excuses, as to why I shot badly!

That's not how I'd go about it

I took my first honey crop in the May of 2017.  There had been a significant acreage of oilseed rape around the village and the bees had made good use of it to produce an early honey crop.  It's not the finest of honeys because it is prone to crystallising within hours of extraction, but it was our first crop and we were just delighted to see the honey pour from the extractor.*

Later in the Summer I was approached by an acquaintance that had heard that I had some bees.  He had a hive up in his Orchard and wondered if I would be willing to extract some honey from his hive.  He offered up half of the crop by way of a reward and I agreed ... What could possibly go wrong?

On the agreed date** I loaded up the Defender with my beekeeping kit and drove up to his orchard which is close to the tower that overlooks the village.  We wandered over to the hive and I was presented with a very scruffy WBC hive that was sat on a wooden platform some 3' above ground level.

I suited up, lit my smoker and clambered up on to the platform to open up the hive.  The owner had already informed me that he followed a hands off approach to beekeeping and this was apparent as soon as I managed to wrestle the roof from the hive.  

The WBC hive is the traditional English beehive that most people tend to picture when asked to imagine a hive.  It is a double walled design, with outer walls surrounding and protecting the hive that sits within.  

This hive had not been inspected for months, if not years.  It was apparent that ill-fitting supers and frames had been added at some point and these had created gaps that had allowed the bees to colonise the space between the inner hive and the outer walls.  This space was crammed with honey-filled comb and bees.

I could see that the colony was healthy enough, but it was clear that the owner had no spare equipment and neither did he seem to have any desire to take any care of the colony.  I therefore advised him that I would only take one of the two supers for a harvest and that was on the understanding that he returned the super to the hive to give the colony the space it needed.

After a bit of work with the hive tool I managed to break the super free from the hive.  As I did this it became apparent that the outer hive was starting to rot.  I upgraded my advice from "inspect them and give them more space" to "move them in to a new hive".  I lifted the honey filled super from the manky hive and stepped back ... I had forgotten that the hive was 3' off the ground and found myself falling with a 25 lb super in my hands.  As I landed, the super crushed the top of one of my fingers and my pride was somewhat bruised too.

To cut a long story short, the honey was extracted and I received a bottle of wine, a leg of lamb and nearly eight pounds of honey in payment.  I also ended up with a broken finger and several hours of work to clean the extractor after this harvest. 

Funnily enough, I hadn't really heard from him again until I bumped in to him earlier this week.   He asked how my bees were doing and I asked how his were, in return.  He advised that the colony had died out a couple of years after we had taken the harvest.  He had cleared the hive and bought a new colony from a local semi-professional beekeeper.  The semi-pro had advised this chap to inspect the hive every eight days, but this chap seemed to take a perverse pleasure in advising that he hadn't looked at them since introducing them to the hive.

I really don't understand why this chap has bees.  He takes no care of them.  He doesn't need them for pollination of his orchard as there are ample local colonies to perform this service.  I just don't get it!

---

* I had borrowed a hand cranked extractor and all the other extracting paraphernalia from Doctor H; Village Idiot's son and heir.

** 30th July 2017 ... I knew my beekeeping notes would be of use eventually.

A glimmer of hope?

Late in the afternoon the 'phone rang.  I answered and found myself talking to a rather excited 30%.  It appears that the daughter of the owner of the cottage we like has tracked her down on FaceBook and sent her a message saying that her mum wants to sell her house to us and is willing to give us a little more time to see if we can sell The Pile.

30% spoke to the daughter this evening and it appears that her mum really liked how we responded to her home and felt that we were really suited to it.*  She has the flexibility to give us more time and is willing to do so. Apparently she has received another offer, but has rejected it in favour of ours.

As the title of today's entry states, this is only "a glimmer of hope", as we still need to get a Buyer for The Pile.  We did have a viewing today, but we have yet to receive any feedback.

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* Maybe our bees bring us luck?  When we spoke to the seller we mentioned that the orchard and paddock would be perfect for the hives and she instantly responded that her father had kept bees.  It's a little odd how keeping bees seems to lead to all sorts of new encounters and relationships.  I even had my Boss ping me over the weekend to ask for advice about a bumblebee nest in his garden.

Who turned the heating off?

This week it has been reported that we have had the sunniest Spring on record.*

Today's weather was therefore something of a shock.  I awoke to a grey sky and drizzle with temperatures ten degrees** lower than they were yesterday.  It was cold and depressing after the glorious sunshine of May and breakfast was eaten inside rather than in the garden.

There is little to report for today.  The cooler weather meant that the dogs could have an afternoon walk around the Three Miler.  I also dragged the porn mower from the shed and endured forty minutes of fine rain as I tidied up a damp lawn in preparation for tomorrow's viewing. 

---

*  Also the eighth warmest and fifth driest.

**  Celcius 

A quieter day

For the first time in a week it was a fairly normal day.  I got annoyed wth fuckwits at work and seemed to spend most of my time either placating people, who had been upset by Colleague R, or stopping him from making mountains out of molehills.

There were no house selling, emotional roller-coaster events, although the Agent did get a call from a potential buyer who advised that he'd be willing to come and have a look, provided that we were willing to accept twenty to thirty thousand less than the asking price, and that was only if the house didn't need any work doing to it.  Our Agent informed him that this was an unusual approach to house buying and that it was unlikely to get him a viewing appointment.  We all agreed that he could go and fuck himself!*

We do have another viewing on Thursday, so it looks like tomorrow will be mostly cleaning and tidying.

I did also brighten up the outside of the house by planting the raised bed with marigolds.  This has become an annual event over the past few years.  The bed is situated alongside the footpath and the orange of the marigolds add a welcome splash of colour to this rather austere aspect of the property.  The locals seem to love  it and are always very complimentary when they see us preparing and planting out the bed.

---

*  We want to sell the house, but we are not desperate.  We have no intention of letting some tyre kicking arsehole walk through our home, spouting bullshit in an attempt to screw the price down below market value.

The bubble burst

Today we found out that our prospective buyers would not be making a further offer and had, in fact, submitted an offer on 30%'s "Uncle Brian's" house.

Obviously, Uncle Brian is well aware of our situation.  When they viewed his house he noted that they didn't seem that interested and his current opinion is that he doesn't trust them as far as he could throw them.  He is yet to respond to their offer.

We are very disappointed but, having completed the post match analysis, the warning flags were there from the start.  The Estate Agents had indicated that they didn't show the normal behaviours of a buyer* and the lack of response after we rejected their opening offer was certainly not the norm.  The more we think about it, the more we conclude that it was never a proper offer and it is better for the sale to fall through now, than after we had spent a few thousand on Solicitor and Surveyor fees.

We are both very cross and very disappointed at having to withdraw our offer on the cottage, but we have a couple more viewings of The Pile in the pipeline, so let's just wait and see.

---

*  Remember, they viewed the house three times, including a visit for their daughter to "chose her new bedroom".  Their feedback was gushingly positive ... and then just lost all interest when their opening offer was knocked back. Strange!

Surely it can't be that difficult?

This morning started with a delivery ...

I've been in contact with a chap down in the village who is anxious to get a nucleus colony of bees installed in his new hive.  To be honest, I'm not sure* that he is sufficiently prepared, but all I can do is give him a few pointers and hope that he a) listens,  b) follows sound advice and c) joins a club and gets himself a mentor.

So, as I said, this morning I trundled down to his house and spent forty minutes installing six frames of bees in his hive.  He is going to have a few challenges as my frames aren't really compatible with his hive.  I've already mentioned that he isn't properly prepared and not being aware that there are several frame and hive types, most of which are not cross-compatible, was his first major crime.**  For Fuck's Sake!  Keeping bees is challenging enough, without making it even more complicated by trying to migrate bees from one type of hive to another. 

Anyway, the frames were introduced and I left him with some basic instructions to follow over the next days and weeks.  I don't want him to fail,  but, at the same time, I have no desire to take on another mentee.*** 

I've advised him to do weekly inspections, but does he know what he is actually looking for?  Can he identify queen cups and swarm cells? Can he spot eggs and young larvae?  Can he even identify a worker, drone or queen?  The list of questions and concerns is as long as my arm, but 30%'s advice is ringing in my ears "You've done everything you can, its his problem now".

The problem is that I feel a sense of responsibility for the future of the colony.  I don't want a novice beekeeper's ignorance to lead to the demise of a colony of honey bees.

---

*  Actually I am bloody positive that he is nowhere near sufficiently prepared.  His comment that he had "watched a few YouTube videos" told me that he has severely underestimated the knowledge and skill needed to maintain a colony or two.

**  Try fitting a Ford fuel injection system to a Volvo and see how far you get. 

*** This is a hideous word and I actually cringe as I type it.

A bit of normality

Earlier in the week Bubbles sent me a WhatsApp asking if I fancied going clay pigeon shooting this morning. 

It has been more than ten weeks since I last shot* and I'm not that good at the best of times, so I was expecting to be absolutely appalling after two and half months without laying a finger on a shotgun.  There was also going to be the novelty of the new social distancing procedures that had been implemented to minimise the risk of infection.  It was going to be a strange mix of familiar and new routines.

It was quite reassuring to go through the pre-shoot routine.  110 fibre wad cartridges in the bag ... check.  Ear plugs and shooting glasses ... check.  Hat, shooting gilet and licence ... check.  Finally I unlocked the gun safe, pulled my Browning out of her "sock" and zipped her in to a gun slip.  I was ready to go out and smash some clays.

Today's shooting ground of choice was the Hereford & Worcester ground over on the other side of Redditch.  Bubbles had got us booked in for a 10.15 start and we navigated our way through the new one-way system to pay and enter the ground.

I volunteered to shoot first at stand #1 and was somewhat apprehensive as I loaded and shouldered my gun.  I called "pull" and Bubbles released the first clay.  I tracked the clay's path, fired and missed.  There was no time to think as the sound of the first shot was the signal for Bubbles to release the second clay.  I picked up the path of the second clay, took aim and fired.  I was rewarded with the sight of clay fragments raining down.  

It is fair to say that I was somewhat relieved that I had managed to "get my eye in" and hit one of the targets.  Eight more clays followed in quick succession and my score for the first stand was 5/10.  It's not a great score, but after a ten week gap I was happy enough ... it could have been a whole lot worse.

Before lockdown my percentage score was mid to high fifties on a good day and forties on a not so good day.  Today I managed 56% and was quite chuffed.  Bubbles is a far better shot than I, and scored a solid 81%.

Bubbles did say "You'd better check my maths"

The thing is, we both agreed that the shooting was great.  What can't you love about using a shotgun to blow targets to smithereens? However, the camaraderie was equally as important.  It was lovely to wander around in the sun talking bullshit, catching up on each other's news and alternating between congratulating great shots and ripping the piss when we missed the easy ones.

Now I've got to clean my gun.

---

*  14th March at Hailes Shooting Ground

The suspense is intense

Our BAFO* on Pile #2 has been accepted.  There was a momentary pause for a minor celebration, but we still need to get a firm offer in place on The Pile.  Our potential buyers have been in contact with the Estate Agent, advising that they had viewed another property yesterday, but "it wasn't for them".  They have another house to look at this afternoon** and then they will get back to the Agent about our house.  They say that they, and their daughter, love our house, so we can only wait and see.

You can rest assured that we are constantly revisiting our decisions and second guessing each and every one of them.  Should we have accepted their only offer?  Surely everyone comes in with a low bid at first?  Then there is the forensic analysis and reanalysis of the scant facts with the hope that the cosmic tumblers will, once again, click in to place an unlock a new future for us.

30% keeps telling me that "it will happen if it is meant to be", but, as you have probably worked out,  I'm not a great believer in fate*** and am currently thinking "have we fucked this up"?

---

*  Best and final offer.

**  This turned out to be the home of 30%'s "Uncle Brian".  It is £50K more expensive than ours and has the space they need, but not the location.  30% interrogated Uncle B via FaceBook and his view was that they didn't seem that interested.

*** Now the bell shaped curve of probability is a completely different thing.  Everybody gets lucky once in a while.

Who is going to blink first?

It came as no surprise that our opening offer on the property was rejected.  It was £20K under the asking price, but surely no-one starts a negotiation with their best and final offer?

Well, it appears that may be the case with our potential buyers.  The feedback from the Agents is that they are not going to come back with another offer and are, in fact, now going to look at other properties in the area.

So today was spent with very high stress levels with both of us wondering whether we had messed up by not accepting the one and only offer on The Pile.  We are both aware that it was a very good offer and was only 3.33% less than our asking price.  Have we fucked this up?

Later in the day 30% did some social media stalking of our potential buyer and discovered that she was a senior buyer for an automobile manufacturer.  This is a women that understands the art of negotiation and this had a somewhat calming effect.

Are we in a staring contest where it is a case of who will blink first?  If she blinks we get a few more grand and that will certainly help with fees and stamp duty.  If we blink first the buyer gets the house for her opening offer.

Our desire to buy the house we have viewed is obviously a massive incentive to cave in and accept the offer.  It is fair to say that this is a nerve wracking situation.

We have done our sums and worked out that we can afford to buy the new house for its asking price, based on what our potential buyer has offered.  We will need to hit our savings hard, but we are willing to do so.

This evening we submitted an increased offer on the new house, well aware that we can't proceed until our potential buyer blinks.

It looks perfect

With an offer made on The Pile, we promptly made an appointment to view the property that we had driven out to look at last Saturday.

At eleven o'clock this morning we turned up for our viewing and were both bowled over by the house, its gardens and its views over South Worcestershire.  Admittedly it will need redecorating and, in time, the kitchen and bathrooms will need to be updated, but it is a property where you could just move in and enjoy your new home.

We both absolutely loved it and put in an opening offer as soon as we got home ...

The only problem is that our potential buyers haven't come back to us with an improved offer.  It is fair to say that our stress levels have not subsided.

A disturbance in The Force

The possibility of moving house suddenly got very real!

After more than fifteen years here at The Pile we have become very accustomed to our environment and our daily routines.  One might say "stuck in a rut". If that is the case, it is a very pleasant "rut" and I would argue that we have just become very settled to, and comfortable with, our life here in the village.

There was, therefore, a massive disturbance in The Force today, when we received a very respectable offer for the house.  All of a sudden everything that seemed permanent was not.  Our future was unclear and a thousand questions filled our heads.  

It is fair to say that both of us were very unsettled by this sudden turn of events.  I know that this is the natural order of things when you put your house up for sale, but after the complete lack of interest a couple of years ago, we didn't expect anything ... but we did hope.

Needless to say we have politely rejected the first offer.  As I said, it was a good offer, but surely the prospective buyer has left some wiggle room and can up a little more ... After all we have conveyancing, removals and stamp duty to consider.

Other stuff

Obviously 30% and I are in a head spin as a result of today's news, but life goes on and there were a couple of other noteworthy events ...

Firstly, Dog #3's recent behaviour can now be explained.  She has come in to season over the weekend and is unbelievably clingy at the moment.  She is a complete "wuss" at the best of times, but can now be found lying outstretched on the sofa with a pained expression and exhibiting the occasional whimper.*  

I also grabbed a camera and took a few pictures of the Moto Guzzi to preserve her for posterity.

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*  This could be due to the indignity of having to wear a pair of Huggies pull-ups to prevent any mess. 

Weekend round-up

It's the end of a relaxing, yet stressful, long weekend. Let me explain ...

Saturday

I've already recounted that we had a second viewing of The Pile On Friday.  Well, early on Saturday morning the phone rang and it was the Estate Agents.  A third viewing had been requested with the stated purpose of "allowing the children to choose their bedrooms".  The family are obviously very keen, but isn't it more appropriate to agree a selling price before choosing where the kids will sleep?

30% was somewhat stressed by this rather bizarre situation, especially as Social Distancing is still in place and viewings should be kept to a minimum. She had a lengthy conversation with the Agent that climaxed with the advice that the prospective buyer should "shit or get off the pot".  I must admit I smiled to myself as I listened to her rant at the Agent. I attempted to calm her down and see the positive side of things, we definitely have a fish on the line and now we just need to stay calm and reel it in.

Much of Saturday morning was spent tidying the house in preparation for viewing #3, although 30% and I did have time to display a possibly serious error in judgement ...

We drove  few miles down the road to do a "drive by" of a property that seems to be just what we want.  It has land, a lovely view and is on a quiet lane, yet is within easy reach of the local town.  It looks like it could be perfect for us, but we cannot get a viewing until we have an offer on The Pile.  

The result is that 30% and I are now stuck in a complicated emotional stew of desire, frustration, anticipation and fear.

Sunday

A good chunk of Sunday was spent inspecting the hives.  The weather was just about warm enough, but the bees weren't flying well and the hives were stuffed with irritable workers.  All seemed well and the queen in the most recent shook swarm seems about to start laying.  

Sunday's inspection did have another objective.  Aa a result of Wednesday's chimney clearing escapade, I have been contacted by a chap who wants a nucleus of bees for a hive that his wife gave him as a present.  As a consequence I was looking at which of my queens I was prepared to let go would be suitable for him.  The prospective beekeeper is a nice enough chap, but he has virtually no knowledge of beekeeping beyond watching a few videos on YouTube!  He has a lot to learn in a very short space of time!*

The afternoon was started with a kip on the sofa before I headed outside and finally threw a bucket of water over the Moto Guzzi.  After her sponge bath, I wheeled her in to a sunny spot to dry off in the evening sun while 30% and I enjoyed the calm that comes at the end of the day.

Monday

The weather was scorching from the start, so I opened up the garage doors, assembled cloths and cleaning products and spent most of the morning and early afternoon polishing the Guzzi.  She now looks presentable and I need to photograph her before she gets grubby again.

The afternoon saw a trip to Redditch for a socially distanced afternoon tea with Mr and Mrs Tweedy in their garden.  It was Mr Tweedy's birthday and fun couple of hours were spent catching up on their news whilst partaking of tea and cake.

So, that's a quick summary of a long weekend.  The next few days could be interesting, exciting or very disappointing.

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*  I did give him a bit of advice and suggested that he joined a local beekeeping club and got himself a mentor.  I got the feeling that this seed of wisdom fell on stony ground, so I made it absolutely clear that I would give him a bit of advice, but was not willing to mentor him ...

I made that mistake a while back and spent eighteen months being accompanied for an entire beekeeping season by a chap who was intent on having a Top Bar Hive.  From the very start I advised him against it and pointed out the various failings and limitations of this third world beekeeping practice.  He steadfastly ignored my advice and I ended up spending a lot of time developing an approach to produce a nucleus colony that would fit in his non-standard hive.

The nuc was delivered and I saw very little of him after that, although when I last bumped in to him, at VI's funeral, he advised that he was giving up the Top Bar and moving to National Hives. At no point did he apologise for wasting my time or ignoring my advice and, to add insult to injury, he promised a curry to "thank" me for my mentoring and the nuc.  I'm still waiting!

Another long weekend

It was the start of yet another long weekend.

For most of May I have worked part-time and have really enjoyed the new balance between working and non-working days.  This new working pattern stemmed from the fact that 30% and I had planned to spend a few days down on The Gower at the beginning of the month.  That mini-break got cancelled, so, with the agreement of my Boss, I rescheduled my three days of holiday across the entire month. Basically I tacked them on to the weekends. This gave me three four day weeks and one three day week, as I took advantage of the two Bank Holidays.

Although I was allegedly not working, my days was already looking fairly busy.  I had arranged for "the impulse buy" to be serviced and MOT'd down at Arden Motorcycles in Alcester.  We also had a couple coming back for a second viewing of The Pile.  As a consequence I was either schlepping to and fro between home and Alcester or tidying up the house and garden.

Today I thought I'd jot down the story of the impulse buy...

TP and I like to go the Motorcycle Live event in Birmingham. It takes place every year around the time of his Birthday and, as we both love bikes, it's an event that we can both enjoy together and relate to it on equal terms.  30% likes to call it "male bonding". I suppose I see it as a maturing of our father/son relationship.

We attended the event back in 2018 and, frankly, we were not overly impressed with the styling of the 2019 models being presented.  They looked very similar to each other and their ultra-modern styling didn't appeal to either of us.   We found ourselves drawn to the more retro designs being produced by manufacturers such as Triumph, Royal Enfield ... and Moto Guzzi.

We lingered at the Guzzi display and both agreed that every one of their limited range of models was a delight of Italian design and individuality.  Their transversely mounted, air cooled V-twin engines are a prominent feature and were proudly incorporated in to the designs.  It is fair to say we both rather liked them.

For the preceding few years Moto Guzzi had been very successful with their V7 model range and one model had really caught my eye.  In 2016 they went from the V7 ii to the V7 iii and produced a limited edition model called the V7 ii Stornello.  It is a Street Scrambler design with a red, tubular frame, white paintwork on the tank and brushed aluminium mudguards.  It was a lovely bike, but there were only one thousand of them spread across the whole planet.

Our experience at the Bike Show rekindled my interest in the Stornello and, shortly after the event, I casually entered the model in to a Google search field.  I found a beauty about sixty miles away and, on impulse made a call to the Seller.  It was eighteen months old with only 1600 miles on the odometer.  The previous owner had bought it new, ridden it for a while and then px'd it against another bike.  After a very short discussion with 30%, I put down a holding deposit and arranged to view it...

By early December it was delivered and I couldn't wait to see the look on TP's face when he came home for Christmas and saw what his idiot Father had gone and done.

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Post script:  The purchase of the Guzzi was really the death knell for the Bonneville.  They both had the roughly the same amount of power, but the MG was much lighter and consequently performed and rode far better than the Bonnie ever would.  Its limited edition status also gave it an individuality that the Bonneville could never attain.

I would have added a picture in this entry but the Stornello is embarrassingly filthy, so that will have to wait until after I have "thrown a bucket of water over her".

My dog is a little shit!

This morning I was roused much earlier than I wanted to be.

I was dragged from the depths of sleep by dog #3 licking one of my hands. I withdrew it under the covers and the little bugger moved down the bed and found a foot poking out from under the duvet. That got licked too.  Having seemingly got tired of licking that foot, it then rummaged around until it found my other foot and gave it the same licky treatment.

By this time I was most definitely awake and I cracked one eyelid.  The light level told me that it was well before six o'clock and I groaned inwardly.  You see, the problem is that once I am awake I find it virtually impossible to fall back to sleep or lie in.  I knew that I was going to have to get up as it seemed that the dog wanted to be let out for a pee. My night's sleep was definitely over.

I checked my watch and saw that it was five, fifteen.  I'll repeat that; the little bugger had woken me at quarter past bloody five!  Now. I'm happy to rise at six, but this was unacceptable.  Clothes were thrown on and dog #3 jumped off the bed and trotted happily to the bedroom door.

We made our way downstairs and I grabbed the keys and unlocked the door to the garden.  The little sod had no interest in going out in to the garden.  She headed straight to the lounge and curled up in her favourite spot on the sofa.

The bloody thing then snoozed for a couple of hours until the Marauder and Whiffler woke and, only then, went out to desecrate the lawn.

I don't like heights

As a beekeeper I seem to have become the "go to guy" for any Hymenopterid related issue that may arise in the vicinity.  If a friend or acquaintance encounters a swarm, a wasp nest or even bumblebees in the garden I seem to get a call.  It actually goes beyond that and I now get a summons if friends of friends have an insect problem!

I don't really mind and am happy to offer advice or guidance. I'm also happy to collect a swarm. provided it is within easy reach.  I am certainly not going to put myself at risk climbing up trees to collect a swarm, especially as I already have more colonies than I really want or need.*

So, how on earth did I find myself forty feet in the air on a scaffolding tower, wearing a bee suit and looking down a redundant chimney?

For the past few weeks I have been consulted intermittently by a friend who has bees in one of his chimneys.  The chimney is no longer in use and the friend has had scaffolding erected so that he can re-point the brickwork.  He is no fan of being stung and consequently wanted my advice about the bees that appeared to be in residence.  We initially thought that they were masonry bees, but found them to be honey bees when a brick was removed from and he found himself peering at comb crawling with bees.  I was sent a WhatsApp image and asked what to do.

This wild colony probably originated as a swarm and had viewed the hollow of the capped chimney as the perfect place to settle, they live in hollow trees, small caves and crevices in the wild and a chimney is a handy man-made substitute.  There was no way to remove the colony without significant risk, so the decision was taken to use a chemical insecticide to kill them** and enable the removal of the combs.

The insecticide was applied about a week ago and this afternoon I turned up with a couple of bee suits and we were soon high in the air looking at bees buzzing around the chimney.  As it says in the title; I really don't like heights and I was very conscious of being so high. Even more so, when I had to climb up off the platform and perch on a scaffold rail to peer down the chimney.

The weird thing was that my fear of heights disappeared as soon as I found myself inspecting the comb blockage.  Apparently doing something normal is a great distraction from one's phobias.  Over the next forty minutes we dug out fifty or sixty pounds of sticky honey comb that extended a couple of feet down the chimney. This bagged and lowered to the ground and then we celebrated our ingenuity with beers in the sun.

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* I worked out that four colonies are more than sufficient.  I can take a reasonable honey harvest from them and their management takes a couple of hours every week, leaving me enough time for family and other interests.  If I loose a colony over the Winter there are still three remaining and a split or shook swarm can be taken to replace any losses...  The problem is that bees do like to reproduce and I overwintered six colonies and currently have eight spread over two apiaries!

** This may seem harsh, but this pest removal rather than the destruction of threatened British wildlife in their natural habitat.

Politicking

This morning found me with my nose to the grindstone reviewing feedback on the recommendations that I had spouted before disappearing for a long weekend.

It was no surprise that I had ruffled Colleague R's feathers.  He needs to understand that his reign is over and the brave new world is going to fall under my dominion rather than his.   I may need to calm him down, but it'll do him good to stew and lick his wounds for a couple of days and I am never in a rush to talk to him ... on any day of the week.

As for Colleague M, I had heard nothing from him directly, although I had seen a couple of emails that reinforced my view that he is a bone idle fucker that does the bare minimum to push a task forward. I have worked with him on previous occasions  and am well aware of his shortcomings. It is unfortunate that my boss never took enough interest to work out what the rest of the team have known for a long, long time.  As a result I ensure that I always give him clear and documented direction and follow up on a regular basis to make sure he is doing a half-arsed approximation of what he is supposed to.

I managed to grab ten minutes with my Boss to have a quick chat and to ensure that he was crystal clear on the whys and wherefores of my recommendations.  He had already agreed to my approach, but I just wanted to double check before I committed resources. The clock is slowly ticking down to the end of June when the contracts expire and I don't want to pulled up in a couple of weeks' time and asked "why the hell are you doing that"?

In summary; my day was spent talking to a number of colleagues and my manager to ensure that we were all aligned and in agreement with my plan of action.  If I wasn't playing politics, I was setting up meetings to get the plan moving.

Oh, and a couple came to see the house. We don't think they were particularly impressed to be asked to wear masks or gloves for the viewing and the feedback suggests that this wasn't what they were loooking for.

A busy weekend

It is fair to say that my three day weekend was fairly busy.  Our primary goal was to get the house and garden cleaned and decluttered in preparation for the viewing on Tuesday. 

In addition to the Spring Clean, TP needed assistance with bottling twenty litres of home brewed IPA and he also had a young cheddar cheese that needed to be coated in beeswax before it was placed in the cellar to mature.  He is certainly trying to keep himself occupied during the lockdown.

There were also bees to be inspected, lawns to be mowed and dogs to be walked. At the risk of repeating myself, it was a busy weekend.  I won't create a boring narrative of domesticity, but will note down a couple of things that amused or interested me.

Firstly, I inspected the hive from which I created a shook swarm in mid-April.  I am pleased to report that the new queen has mated and has started to lay.  Hopefully she will have the colony back up to strength in the next few weeks and they will continue to add to the honey already stored in the hive's supers.

The second was an amusing discussion that I crashed in to.  30% and TP were discussing the impact of the lockdown on students and graduates and ended up talking about the son of one of her colleagues.  Apparently he was due to go to University in September, but was considering taking a gap year to concentrate on his sporting interests.  We were advised that "he is one of the best swimmers in the Country".  My pithy response was "What, better that a duck?"  After a few minutes of analysis it was determined that, however good this chap was, there were a significant number of British ducks or pike, for that matter, that could out-swim him.

What a couple of wankers!

I've already mentioned that my Boss has asked me to manage the handover of work from a pair of Contractors that will be moving on in a couple of month's time.  They both have a reputation for being wind bags and slackers and, so far, my findings have reinforced that view.

Today I had workload review calls arranged with both of them and I turned up promptly for the first with Contractor M.  I had already picked up M's most significant piece of work because he hadn't got a clue how to move it forward to completion. As we worked our way through his very short list it was apparent that he had one key task that needed attention and he had done fuck all with it in the three weeks that it had sat in his work stack.

He has been coasting for a while now and, if I am honest, there is little point in kicking his arse at this late stage*.  Instead, I pointed out that he had an administrative role looking after a configuration management database and he was going to be spending the next few weeks preparing a "Dummies Guide" and performing knowledge transfer to some selected colleagues. 

He is an evasive little fucker and I am going to have to keep a close eye on him to ensure that all of this happens. Step 1 in the management of this was a full set of meeting notes with actions that were issued to him and our Boss.

The second call was with Contractor R and this took place about forty minutes later.  I had been focussing on this chap's work stack since the beginning of April and had already proven that eight of his nine work activities required zero input from him.

At this point I will acknowledge that the ninth work activity is a bit of a beast, but I had spent the past few days preparing for this call and had summarised the task, the deliverables and the fact that all Colleague R needed to do was prepare a Service Description Document.

We spent the next eighty minutes in the most ridiculous discussion where it rapidly became apparent that R had absolutely no plan to close out this work activity.  It appears that he is simply revelling in attending inconclusive customer calls and claiming that a lack of requirements is preventing progress.

I'm a completer/finisher by nature and this situation is absolutely abhorrent to me.  This chap is being paid a fortune and is happy to coast along spouting nonesensical bullshit to conceal the fact that he is making no attempt to drive this activity to conclusion.

It is fair to say that I came very close to going ballistic at a few points in this discussion, but kept my temper in reasonable check and formulated a plan to delimit the requirements as they were currently understood and to develop the solution definition document to align with the pricing that is being developed by a frolleague of mine.

Funnily enough my manager got another meeting summary with a proposal that the current documentation should be abandoned and that I should manage the production of the necessary document. 

Let's see what he says when I get back in to work on Tuesday.

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*  and that would be my Boss' job, not mine

Furniture Polish recipe

The main purpose of this journal is jot down the comings and goings of life, things that amuse or irritate me and useful pieces of information that I want to note down for perpetuity.  Basically it's part diary, part scrapbook, part jotter.

It was a quiet day today, so I thought I'd note down a recipe for furniture polish that I had made at the back end of 2018.  I made a couple of jars, so have a plentiful supply.  Its likely to be years before I need to refer to the recipe again ... but at least I stand a chance of finding it in here.

I suppose I had better start with a warning. If you attempt to make this polish you will be working with highly flammable substances and you do so at your own risk. I'm not responsible if you set fire to yourself.

Ingredients

1/3 Beeswax

1/3 Boiled Linseed Oil

1/3 Pure Gum Turpentine (not the synthetic stuff)

Method

1. Measure out the ingredients.
2. Put the turps and linseed oil in sealed jars and put these in warm water to heat both the jars and the contents.  The aim of this stage is to pre-warm these substances safely.  If cold turps and linseed oil are added to the melted beeswax, it will solidify quickly unless it is kept over the heat.  By pre-warming these solvents it should be possible to blend them with the beeswax away from any source of ignition. Do not use a Bain-marie, double boiler or any other stove top device. Put the sealed jars in a washing up bowl and add hot water from the tap or kettle. As the water cools replace it with warmer water to keep the solvents nice and warm.
3. Melt the bees wax in a Bain-marie or double boiler.
   Once melted remove from the heat and turn off any sources of ignition
4. Add the warmed Linseed Oil to the melted beeswax and stir well
   If the wax starts to solidify it will be necessary to return the container to the Bain-marie, which should be warm enough to melt the contents without the need for the external heat sources.
5. Finally add the heated Turpentine and stir well.
6. Pour in to the warmed jars and leave to set

Note: test the polish on a concealed area of any item you plan to polish to ensure it is compatible with the wood finish.  

Shit! We need to tidy up

Back in August 2018 we actually put The Pile up for Sale.

Many people were surprised by this. "You have a lovely home", "You've made so many friends in the village" and "you will be really missed" are a sample of the lovely comments in response to the sight of our "For Sale" board.

Each of these comments was absolutely correct and we both acknowledged that, if the house didn't sell for the right price, we would live happily here into our dotage. However, if we could get a buyer we would love a similar sized property in a quieter location with a small parcel of land, say an acre or two.

The fact that we are still at The Pile today is evident that we didn't attract a buyer. After about twelve months on the property market we got fed up with the stream of idiots that came to see the house and their nonsensical feedback after viewing*, so we took it off the market.

The recent reduction in road traffic, as only essential journeys were undertaken, has reinforced our view that we would love a property in a quieter location. As a result 30% got on the 'phone to the Agents and the house was put back on the market a few days ago.

We didn't expect much to happen as Estate Agencies were in tick over mode and video viewings were the rule. However, Sunday's Ministerial announcement relaxing the English Social Distancing Regulations has enabled the housing market to restart.

Today we had our first request for a viewing and, with guidance from the agents, had to consider how this should proceed ... we decided to go with "face masks, gloves and they look but don't touch anything".

As it says in the title of today's entry, it looks like we need to tidy the house.**

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* I could go on at length about the viewers. 

There was the one that was downsizing, but wanted an artists studio and couldn't see that any of the four bedrooms, four reception rooms,  cellarage and double garage might serve this purpose. This is despite the fact that floor plans were provided with the house brochure. 

There was another that advised that she loved the house, but the garden wasn't large enough as she wanted to keep chickens ... we have a flock of fifteen layers that she cooed over when she visited. One can only think that she wanted a 5,000 strong, commercial laying flock as a garden feature!

** Apparently many people went overboard with cleaning and tidying as they went in to lockdown. We definitely did not!

Number crunching

I was absolutely delighted to be back at my desk, working my way through a surprisingly long list of emails that had accumulated in the couple of days I had been away from work.

In fact, I was so delighted that I had to use a reward system to encourage myself to "get my arse into gear".

I had spent the past couple of days refining some crappy wax comb in to a 3lb disk of beeswax.  My reward was to allow myself to continue with the refining of the wax provided that I did some bloody work first.

Consequently my morning was spent reviewing raw data and collating information in to a solution cost model that became more complex by the minute.

As midday approached I deemed that I had earned a break, so decided to refine some of the beeswax.

The large disk of wax had been broken apart and divided in to four roughly equal portions. One of these was melted in a double boiler on the hob.  It was then filtered through some fine cotton fabric to remove any remaining crud.  After cooling I was left with an aromatic block of beeswax.

Over the course of the day I returned to this activity, whenever I felt that I had earned a break, and ended up with four blocks of wax that will be perfect for candles, hand cream, shoe or furniture polish.

Oh, and I also produced a rather fabulous set of pricing options and associated financial analysis.

Boris may have overestimated his electorate's intellect

I had today booked off as holiday, making this the final day of a four day weekend.  It was going to be another cold day, so my plan was to stay inside as much as possible.

I started the day by carrying on with the beeswax rendering process that I started yesterday. The four disks of wax were broken up and melted together in hot water. Then they were, again, poured through a sieve in to a container and left to cool.

The cooling would take a good few hours, so I joined 30% on an expedition to Redditch to pick up a few "essentials".  She headed in to the super market and it was agreed that I should visit the DIY store next door for compost ...

It all seemed to start reasonably well. The store had laid out a queuing area and were restricting numbers entering the store. I was initially confused as to where the queue started*,  but eventually located the entrance to the queueing lane.  It was as I waited that things started to go wrong ...

Another potential customer wandered up and took up position in the queue no more that a meter behind me.  He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had breached my personal two meter exclusion zone as he surveyed the fine vista that is B&Q's carpark.  Fortunately the queue had started to shorten and I was able to increase the distance between us.  This odd cat and mouse game continued for the five or ten minutes of queueing. On occasions he seemed to observe social distancing and at other times he seemed not to be aware of how close he was to me.

I was soon permitted to enter the store and was able to shake him off my tail. My shopping trip went reasonably well and I soon had a trolley loaded with compost ... and this is the point when matters went awry once more.  

The store manager had laid out a one-way system to the tills to enforce social distancing.  Unfortunately, the stupid fucking idiot, had deemed a 5' wide hardware aisle as the best point of entry to the tills.  As I turned in to the aforementioned aisle I was confronted with three elderly gentlemen wandering up and down enjoying the wide variety of screws, nails and other assorted fixings on display.  There was no way I could pass down this aisle until they moved on.

These elderly gents were totally oblivious to the fact that they were blocking the only access to the tills and a queue started to develop behind me as I waited and hoped in vain that they woud develop a modicum of social awareness.  Eventually a helpful assistant appeared, moved the old farts on and the log jam was removed.  She also asked me to do her a favour and respond to the "How have we done today" feedback request, by pointing out what an idiotic arrangement had been put in place.**

The Government's advice has now changed from "stay at home" to "stay alert".  Based on my experiences today,  I think a significant portion of the population have been intellectually defeated by the specific instruction to stay home. How the fuck does Boris expect them to handle the more nuanced "stay alert"?

Let's see how the R number responds.

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* or is that where the queue ended? This is a puzzle, one starts to queue at the queue's end, but finish queuing at the queue's beginning. So, do I join a queue at it's end or beginning?

** Her actual request was focussed on the mental capacity of the Store Manager and a lot funnier.

Slumgum

Today I got around to a job that I had been putting off for a while. The day was forecast to be cold, so I committed myself to refining some beeswax in the garage.

Over the course of the beekeeping season I tend to accumulate a reasonable quantity of beeswax and today had been put aside to process it. This is not a job I enjoy. It is messy and there is a significant amount of work to produce perfect, yellow ingots of wax.

In its raw form beeswax is comb; brood comb, brace comb or honeycomb.  The comb is generally contaminated with honey, pollen, bee larvae, their faecal matter and pupal cases and the older the comb, the more contaminated it is.  Old brood comb is black from the accumulation of debris over time.*

So, this morning I settled in the garage, spread sheets on the floor and started to dismantle a dozen old brood combs. In no time I was covered in wax, squashed larvae and smears of honey...

Oh, and I had a heap of comb to process. I do this using an old rice cooker. About a pint of boiling water is added to the cooker and it is switched on. The comb is gradually added and within twenty minutes I have a gently bubbling mass of black pupal casings.  This is poured through a sieve in to a bucket and is left to cool.  A few hours later I am left with a reasonably clean disk of wax floating on a soup of water, pollen and honey.  The disk of wax is rinsed and set to one side.

I repeated this process three more times and I ended up with a reasonable quantity of beeswax that will be ready for the next steps tomorrow.

3lb 3oz cylinder of beeswax

Now I had better explain the title of today's entry. Slumgum is the black, waxy collection of larvae, larval cases, pollen and other debris that is sieved from the melted wax.  Apparently it makes an excellent fire lighter for bonfires.

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* It is good practice to change the brood combs every couple of years to minimise the bacterial and viral load in the hive.

Does this bode well for a good harvest?

Today was beautiful from the start and it was a simple delight to drink our morning coffee in the sun, watching the bees as they started to fly from the hives.

Once we had breakfasted I spent the morning inspecting the hives and was quite amazed by the one that produced the shook swarm on 19th April.  At this time of year the supers do not demand much attention and my main focus is on the activities of the queen and workers in the brood box.  However, I always take a quick look at a couple of super frames, just to see how much nectar is being stored and converted to honey.

The uppermost super on this hive was crammed with stores and the bees had already capped off* more than half of the cells.  This is very early, especially as there is very little oilseed rape growing nearby to support an early honey crop.  I estimated the weight of honey as close to twenty pounds and can only hope that the other hives do anywhere near as well as this one.

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* The bees will seal each cell with a cap of fresh wax once the moisture level in the honey has dropped below 20%.