Picture Post

Having scanned the last few Journal entries, I can see paragraph after paragraph of unbroken text, so today I thought I'd go with a Picture Post for a bit of variety.

These were taken back in August 2015 on a road trip in the US.  

We were driving Route 1 up the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles towards Monterey when, somewhere close to San Simeon,  30% spotted a sign indicating an Elephant Seal viewing area.  We pulled off the road, wandered towards the beach and were rewarded with the sight of close to one hundred seals hauled out on the beach. We were commenting on their impressive size when we looked out in to the breakers and saw this colossal bull come in on to the beach.

A local lady informed us that we were lucky to see him, as, at this time of year, most of the seals were this year's pups!  It was likely he was coming ashore for the annual moult. 

A change of plans

It is the start of the working week, but at least this one is only four days in length, as Friday is the early May Bank Holiday.

We had planned to be staying at the Oxwich Hotel on the Gower peninsula for three days of this week, but our mini break was scuppered as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak and the resulting Social Distancing regulations.

We used to stay at a rental property a few miles down the coast from Oxwich in Pwll Du near Bishopston. We first stayed there in 2012 and had the honour of being their first ever booking. We had many lovely stays there, but became disenamoured over time as the beach became busier and was no longer the secluded hideaway we first discovered.

Our trips to Pwll Du had given us the opportunity to explore the Gower and we had walked the sands of Oxwich Bay beach on several occasions.  Our visits to Oxwich often ended with a drink in the hotel bar as we rested after our exertions.

We discovered that the hotel was very dog friendly and became aware that they did various doggy deals featuring three nights for the price of two, complimentary cream teas and other tempting offers.  Our first stay was probably in early 2017 and we had a fantastic time.

Having been used to dog friendly actually meaning dog tolerant, it was a revelation to be welcomed and the dogs treated as honoured guests. Our rooms were spacious and each dog was provided with a bowl, a handful of treats, pooh bags and a towel for drying them off after a run on the beach.  We were treated just as well and were delighted to find that there was a "snug" where the dogs were welcome to curl up under the table as we enjoyed their splendid menu.

Over the past few years we have become regulars at the hotel, often visiting twice a year in early Spring and and again in the Autumn.  We had our "mini-moon" there in March immediately after our wedding and had planned to have a few fun days there this week with Grubby Sue and Mark.

Unfortunately that will have to be put on hold for a while and we'll just have to make do with the lanes around the village.

A new drinking game for the middle classes?

Since Saturday didn't involve bees, Sunday did.  I could go on at length about the fun and games in the Apiary, but won't as I'm well aware that the intricacies of beekeeping do not make the most enthralling read.

This morning we had some unusual avian visitors. The garden normally plays host to a few overweight pigeons and a handful of Jackdaws that wouldn't look out of place on a Game of Thrones set.  However, today we found four mallard ducks grazing the lawn.  There have been reports in the media of wildlife responding to the lockdown by becoming less fearful and reclaiming territory lost to humans and their infrastructure. It may be that the quiet had boosted their confidence.

We have, on occasions, had unusual birds in the garden and I can remember a golden pheasant and a red winged startling* making an appearance, but this is the first time I can ever recall waterfowl turning up.  It was rather nice to see them pottering around, but I don't want 30% to get too fond of them as she has a penchant for domestic poultry ... chickens yes, ducks definitely not.**

As I've already mentioned, the day was mostly filled with beekeeping, but I did managed to come up with a possible new drinking game for the British Middle Classes ...

All that is needed is a bottle of one's favourite spirit, a few shot glasses and access to any of Lucy Worsley's splendid documentaries.  The rule of the game is simplicity itself, settle down in front of the television with a shot of your chosen spirit in hand and watch the delightful Lucy as she does what she does best ... and take a shot every time she changes her outfit.

Respect will be earned in great measure for anyone who can make it to then end of the show and still walk out to the kitchen to top up the dips and nibbles.

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* Presumed to be an aviary escapee rather than a wild bird making a significant extension to its normal range of Central and Southern Africa
** They are very noisy and even messier than chickens!

A new look?

Today wasn't the most productive of Saturdays.  I assembled one of the supers that I'd collected on Thursday, 30% and I walked the dogs, I had a massive kip on the sofa and then, feeling guilty, ran the lawn mower around the garden.

This would be a very short entry if it weren't for the fact that I made something of a change to my appearance ...

My last haircut was back in late January and three months growth has turned my "grade two on the back and sides, short on the top and a tapered neck" into a scruffy mess.  My crown has become increasingly more head than hair over the past year, so I finally bit the bullet and let go of the minimal vanity I had about my hair.*

TP was instructed to get his clippers and within a very few minutes, my hair was littering the floor and 30% was muttering about collecting it and putting it out for the birds to use as nesting material.**

It is going to take a while to get used to seeing this new version of me when I catch sight of my reflection, but at least I don't have a head shaped like a potato.  30% has, however, now instructed me to shave, as a week's stubble doesn't work with a neatly shaved scalp.

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*  Bad Man Senior started to go bald in his late teens and, by his early 20's,  only had hair on the back and sides of his head.  From my earliest days I recall that he deployed a faintly ridiculous comb-over in an attempt to disguise his baldness.  The comb-over flapped in the slightest of breezes like a cheerful little pennant until his wife finally snipped it off when he was in his late seventies.
From my teen years I swore that I would never attempt to conceal my thinning scalp.  Fortunately I was somewhat more lucky than my Dad and, apart from a receding hairline leaving my with an obvious widow's peak, I managed to retain a half decent head of hair in to my 50s.
** This possibly amounts to animal cruelty!

The next two days are mine

There's not a lot to report for Friday. I avoided work as far as possible; dogs were walked and TP was given a modicum of assistance with his latest project, which is the construction of a cheese press.

Over the past few weeks, he has made ricotta and mozzarella and is now investigating the making of hard cheeses.  He has set his sights on producing a farmhouse cheddar and is in the R&D phase of the project. This morning I discovered him attempting to reorganising the garage and when I say "the garage" I clearly mean "my garage", so some gentle paternal guidance was provided.*  After a couple of hours he had constructed a working prototype and then headed upstairs to source a bacterial culture. ***

I've already mentioned that it was a quiet day, so I'll mention a couple of conversations we had as dinner was being prepared this week.

I suppose I had better set the scene. 30% tends to come in from work around 6.35 pm and we all tend to congregate in the kitchen for a drinks, nibbles and a chat about our days, whilst our evening meal is assembled.

The first conversation was with Marauder, who was mooching around begging for treats. I offered her a tortilla chip, which she wolfed down. She then looked up at me and asked if I didn't have anything better than "those crappy Mexican dog biscuits"!

The second was more of a learning experience for me ...

Thursday's dinner was a salad with baked potatoes and slices of pigeon and chicken terrine.  I had made the terrine a few months back and part of it had been frozen. I had also been instructed to put potatoes in the oven, so that they were ready shortly after 30% came in from work.

I learnt that it is not wise to claim that I had cooked dinner and that 30%'s sole contribution was the addition of garnish.

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* It would be fair to say that I am somewhat territorial about the garage. At this point it might be worth picturing a crazed, alpha male chimp having a full-on, screaming tantrum including the waving of branches and the throwing of faeces when his territory is invaded. It is, after all, my garage.
30% is, grudgingly, permitted entry provided she limits her activities to the deposit or removal of items from the freezer.
TP needs close supervision as, at the tender age of 23, he has yet to be trusted to follow the rules of the garage.**
** 1) Don't touch anything
     2) If you touch anything, put it back exactly where you took
         it from
     3) If it's plugged in and switched on, fucking leave it plugged
         in and switched on
     4) If you don't know what you're doing, ask
     5) see rule no. 1
*** Take your choice between an internet searching session or a commentary on the state of his bedroom!

An essential journey?

Since the Social Distancing Regulations were introduced in the last week of March, the furthest I have been from home is the, almost daily, walk around the Three Miler with TP and the dogs.

There was one other exception, when I accompanied 30% in to Redditch for pet supplies and pharmaceuticals, but for the most part, my horizons have been very close to home.

Today I needed to make an essential journey ...

The very sunny April has kick started the beekeeping season and my colonies are increasing in size at a tremendous rate. There is a risk that I may run short of supers for the bees' stores, or just to give them more space in the hive.

I ordered three supers from a great, little, local supplier earlier this week and, this afternoon, TP and I headed out in the Defender to collect them. The local lanes were very quiet and our twenty mile round trip took barely forty minutes and that included a few minutes chat with the supplier.

It felt quite odd to be out and I do have a feeling of being constrained the restrictions. It's because there is the potential need to justify the journey, rather than being able to travel as required and ensure that sensible precautions are taken to maintain social distancing.

I am starting to wonder how this is going to come to an end? Certain elements of the population have ignored the restrictions since the outset. Others have patiently complied and then there are those like me, that understand the reasons for the regulations and follow them, but are concerned about how long they will be in place and whether they will ultimately be effective or destructive.

I prefer to be asked rather than being told what to do.

Making up the numbers

My workload has started to increase after a few quiet months and today was the busiest I have been for a long time.

I opened up my email first thing this morning and saw that a set of management costs had come in  from colleagues in the US. As a result, the rest of the day was spent drafting a solution document and aggregating the US costs with estimates* to cover ancillary activities.

Shortly after lunch I was able to get the work peer reviewed and submitted for pricing. Now our Pricer is a stroppy cow and I was expecting her to perform her usual trick of rejecting the request and demanding pre-meetings and reformatting of cost sheets before she would develop the price. I was therefore truly amazed when I saw the pricing delivered to my inbox a few minutes after four o'clock.

I have to admit that it was an enjoyable experience to be busy after such a long interval and the piece of work is likely be accepted by our client as it will facilitate network connectivity for personnel required to work from home as a result of Covid-19 Social Distancing regulations.

One unexpected result of this flurry of activity was that I was exhausted by the end of the working day and asleep on the sofa by eight o-clock this evening.

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* The less generous would say that I had simply pulled these numbers out of my arse. I would counter that years of experience had allowed me to suggest reasonable numbers without the need to trouble very busy support personnel.  I would probably also add that I have the sense to document my work in order that there is full disclosure of the approach.

A new anniversary

Today could be regarded as an anniversary.

Not one of the traditional ones like Birthdays or a Weddings, or even one of the less formal ones, like a first date* or a first kiss.  But today is definitely a date that deserves to be noted down somewhere.

Back in the October of 2018 we were invited to the wedding of a couple of friends from the puppy training class. Initially we were just invited to their "evening do", but we actually got upgraded and attended the entire event; Church, Wedding Breakfast and Evening Reception.

We had a fantastic day and were absolutely bowled over by their choice of venue for the Reception. It is a Country Manor House on the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire border and it is superb; rolling park land, splendid views out to the Cotswolds and a fine Manor House hotel, settled perfectly in the landscape.

We enjoyed the day so much that we actually started to think again about our own wedding ... or, more accurately, the fact that we had been engaged since 2005, and had not got around to tying the knot.** If the truth is told, we were both apprehensive about "the whole wedding thing" and that nervousness had resulted in a very long engagement.  We had both been married before and had attended quite a few as guests, but that wedding in October 2018 was the first time we both felt that that type of wedding would work for us.

Over the following months we discussed our wedding often and even started to look at venues.***  We didn't get very far with this selection process before we both realised that we both actually wanted to use the same venue as our friends had.

On this day last year, we headed over to the venue to attend a wedding fayre. As soon as we walked though the entrance we knew that we had made the right decision and were soon sat with their wedding coordinator discussing packages and dates in 2020.

I had been thinking about an Autumn wedding, whilst 30% was keen to go much earlier and February 2020 was mooted. We started to look at dates in February, having agreed that Friday, 14th February was definitely not an option.  As I started to work out the Saturday dates in February it dawned upon me that it was a Leap Year and that the 29th was going to fall on a Saturday!

The cosmic tumblers had clicked in to place and a booking was made.

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* 30% and I cannot agree on our first date.  I say 22nd December 2001 which was the date we first met up after linking up via the old Friends Reunited website. We had a curry at the Shahi Palace in Redditch ... see I do remember!
However, 30% claims it was 14th February 2002 when we went to see Monsters inc at a Cinema complex in Rubery.
Now we both agree that we were at both of these events, so how on earth can the later event be the "first date"?
** We considered getting married in Las Vegas on our first trip out there in 2006 ... that was until we got there and immediately realised that neither of us wanted to associate our marriage with the tacky, "plastic" Vegas experience.
*** We went to look at one local venue and, after making an enquiry about menu choices, we were asked "Well, didn't you register and get a package as you came in?"  It rapidly became apparent that 30% and I had been considered to be parents of the Bride or Groom rather than the happy couple ... funnily enough, we didn't give them any further consideration as a potential venue.

Sometimes you need to rant!

Today was always going to be challenging!

On Friday I was instructed to take over the lead on a piece of work assigned to Colleague M.  Now Colleague M is a well meaning and intensely irritating little tit,  so today was spent on a series of calls attempting to extract information from him in a structured way and get the aforementioned info inserted in to the relevant sections of a Solution document template.

You can imagine how delighted I was to hear such comments as "So, all you're doing is putting information that I have in a series or emails or in my head in to one spreadsheet" or the equally inflammatory "You seem to be spending a lot of time saying what we won't be doing".  There was absolutely no fucking recognition that I was taking his scant items of information and using a common sense approach to weave a service definition that could be rapidly costed and contracted without causing financial exposure the Neat & Tidy Piano Movers.

Option 1 was to remind the moronic prick that I had suggested that he start to document the solution over a week ago, and had even provided the template to do so.  In this option I would have also pointed out that he didn't have the intelligence to realise that I was defining the solution, it's components and how it was dependent on other Service elements.

Instead I went with Option 2, where I bit my tongue* and made vague statements about how well he had done in his initial investigations and how defining the solution would ensure that there was a clear and common understanding by all involved parties.

If I'm honest, it was actually quite rewarding to perform the interrogation and see the resulting solution start to appear from Colleague M's addled ramblings. We now have a pretty clear, high level scope definition and now know who we need to talk to about costs.

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* I had to bite it quite firmly

More nonsense

I'm certain that many of us have encountered a blinkered old fool that rambles on about how "things were much better in the old days" and the possibly contradictory statement that "kids today haven't had it so good".*

Right, where was I going with this?

...  Crisps, that is the subject for today's dissertation.

When I was a child there were only four or five flavours of crisps; ready salted, cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, smokey bacon and roast chicken. These flavours were judged to be the only necessary snack flavourings in the early 1970s.** They were just perfect, except for salt and vinegar which is just a bag full of fried potatoes covered with acetic acid dust and ready salted which needed a more mature palate, than that of an eight year old, to appreciate their simple perfection.

So, why did crisp manufacturers decide to release new ranges of flavours? We clearly didn't want or need them and this is evidenced by an internet search of UK crisp sales by flavour.  This shows that these 1960s flavours are still top of the charts.

At this point in the rant I'll mention that some of the new flavours are just cynical rebranding of an existing flavour. How different can Red Leicester and Caramelised Onion be from the flavourings used in the original blue bagged, Walkers Cheese and Onion?

And, now I'm on a roll, let's get to the quite bizarre flavours that are available. Thai Sweet Chilli and Worcester Sauce and Sun Dried Tomato are a couple that spring to mind. Why on earth would you want to taste those in preference to the "original 5"?

One evening last week TP and I were having a G&T and tucking in to a few crisps that 30% had tipped in to a dish. Not being able to see the packet, we started to try to guess what flavour they were.  We are still undecided but, after several of the of the unappetising, vaguely tangy slivers, we agreed that a strong favourite is Tramp's Vest.

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* 30% and TP are concerned that I may be heading in this direction at a rapid rate of knots.
** I do have a theory that you should never eat a food product that has been developed any later than about 1976. If you stick to this rule of thumb, you will still be able to enjoy well made convenience foods, confectionary and desserts but avoid the chemical laden, massively processed crap that is on offer nowadays. I will mention one example ... a few years ago in the US we encountered a pressurised can that sprayed "cheese" from a nozzle. I rest my case.

What on earth are you doing up there?

Saturday; the weather was forecast to be fine, so today's plan was to mow the lawn and, once the day warmed, inspect the hives. This is fast becoming the norm for a lockdown weekend.

The turf was soon clipped and I then headed over to Kathy's cottage with a car stuffed with beekeeping paraphernalia.*

My main objective was to relocate the shook swarm from their six frame nucleus hive to a National Brood box. The National Brood holds eleven frames and will give the colony almost twice the space it had in the "nuc".  Hopefully this will assuage its swarming tendency. I soon had the bee covered frames transferred to the larger hive, although I failed to see the queen during the procedure. I then went through the other two colonies and both are doing reasonably well. I needed to remove a few queen cups and they are likely to need additional supers if this warm spell continues.

Back at home, I made a start on three of the four hives in the garden.** All was as to be expected until I reached the smaller of the colonies. I took a look at a couple of frames in the super to see how much nectar was being stored and was surprised to see large patches of worker brood.

Now the occasional few drone cells at the bottom of the frames are to be expected, as the workers will relocate drone eggs from the brood box up in to the super, but solid patches of worker brood suggested that the queen had managed to make her way up through the queen excluder.

It took me two searches of the super's frames before I found her, returned her to the brood box and reassembled the hive. I am now wondering whether I have a small queen that can fit through the bars of a queen excluder or whether this recently acquired excluder has an oversized mesh?

The aim of a queen excluder is to ensure that the stores of honey and the developing bee larvae are kept separate. This is because no beekeeper wants brood contaminating their honey crop. The brood in the super is not a major problem this early in the season as the eggs and larvae will complete their development in no more than 21 days.

I just hope she doesn't make her way back up their again.

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* Keeping Bees involves a fair bit of planning, especially if the hives are away from your equipment store. I had a mental list of everything I was likely to need and still managed to forget syrup for the shook swarm.
** The hive from which produced the shook swarm will be left for four or five weeks before being inspected. This should be sufficient time for the queen cell to hatch, the queen to have her mating flights and start laying in the hive.

Dad does dinner

For the past couple of weeks I have been shadowing two colleagues that will be leaving the Neat & Tidy Piano Movers in the near future. They both have a muddled and confusing approach to work and I have been attempting to sift through their rambling narratives and contradictory emails in an attempt to work out what the hell they have been doing!*

Today I finally thought I had made progress as I had whittled Colleague R's task list down from three pages to one and had provided much needed mentoring and guidance to colleague M. You can imagine my delight when my Boss pinged me for a discussion about colleague M. We both agreed that he had bitten off more than he could chew and it now appears that I am to lead his piece of work complete pile of fucking shit ... Oh Joy!

I am now going to step away from this rant as it is Friday and this bloody mess can wait until the weekend is over.

This evening I was assigned to Dinner duties and 30% instructed me to "do that smoked salmon and pasta thing that you do".  This was a dish that I picked up from my elder sister many years ago.  It has almost certainly evolved over the years and this is its current incarnation ...

Pasta with Smoked Salmon in a Cream Sauce (serves 4)

1 medium onion (finely chopped)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Sliced button mushrooms ... I must have used 20 of them?
olive oil
A dash of white wine or cider, half a glass or thereabouts
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
A pack of smoked salmon cut in to narrow strips
1/2 pint double cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
15 oz of pasta ... I used penne

1) Add a good glug of the oil to a frying pan along with the onion and garlic, sauté until they start to soften.
2) Add the sliced mushrooms and dried herbs, continue cooking until the mushrooms start to soften
3) Add a good splash of white wine or cider and continue cooking until virtually all of the liquid has evaporated
4) Remove from the heat, season with the salt and pepper and add the sliced smoked salmon. Set the pan to one side
5) Cook the pasta and drain it well.
6) Return the drained pasta to the pan and add the salmon, onions and mushrooms.
7) Stir in the double cream and place the pan on a low heat. Continue stirring for a minute or two to ensure the dish is heated.
8) Check the seasoning and serve immediately with a green salad

This takes no more than twenty five minutes from start to finish and is a simple, but tasty supper dish.

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* At this point you might be wondering what my boss does during his working day ... so do I!

Is this the new "normal"?*

I think TP may have made a serious misjudgement of my abilities this morning ...

He approached me, whilst dragging his fingers through his hair, and asked me if I would consider giving his hair a trim. I have to wonder if he has lost all sense of reason after five weeks of Social Distancing?

Let's be clear here, I have only ever cut a persons hair once before and that was over 35 years ago when I was a student. Since then my barbering experience has been limited to clipping a number of Standard Poodles and the occasional trimming of 30%'s fringe.

I can do a half decent lamb clip on a reluctant dog, but, for some strange reason, TP appears to think that this qualifies me to trim a 23 year old's hair.  His view was that, if it all went horribly wrong, I could just give him a crew cut and it would eventually grow back.

On a completely different matter, I have also noticed that honey sales appear to have increased significantly recently ... Four jars were sold from the doorstep in quick succession this morning.

This may, in part, be due to an increased footfall past the house as people take their daily constitutional, but I also wonder whether it is because there is still the urge to shop, but very few outlets to satisfy this desire for retail fulfilment?

Well, if a tastefully packaged jar of honey is now seen as retail therapy substitute, I'm happy to oblige.

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*  In the past 24 hours Government Advisors have started to make statements about some degree of Social Distancing measures being necessary until such time as effective vaccines are available and that might not be in the next calendar year.

Another departure

The exit of the Triumph wasn't the only departure from the garage in early 2019.

The Black Enfield Bullet Classic that 30% presented to me for my 50th was sent over to Arden Motorcycles to be sold on commission too.

As with the Bonnie, she was a pleasant enough little bike and quite enjoyable for a potter around the lanes at 50 mph.  However she lacked power and even I could get the rear brake pedal to grind the road surface when she was leant over negotiating roundabouts.

It was 30% that suggested that I part with her on one condition ... that I used the proceeds from the sale to buy a proper present. In other words, I wasn't to just put it in the bank or fritter it away on shirts and shoes.

So this left me with a couple of grand in the bank, potentially another couple of grand heading my way once the Enfield sold and two empty spaces in the garage.*

Time to peruse the internet!

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* At one point in time I had accumulated six bikes. There were the two Enfields, the CBR 600, the Ducati 996, the Bonneville and the impulse buy.**
** More on this in a future entry

Been and gone

It's very frustrating that the weather is so splendid and I have a selection of motorcycles sat in the garage just begging to be used.

My only essential journeys appear to be trips down to Kathy's cottage to attend to the bees and it is never going to be feasible to use a bike to transport the various bits and pieces I need for a hive inspection.

I suppose I am just going to have to be patient and wait for the Social Distancing restrictions to be eased.

Work was equally frustrating today, so I decided that today's entry would be an update on the contents of the garage ...

Back in the Summer of 2016 TP passed his motorcycle test but was without the means to purchase a "proper" bike. To be fair he never complained and was happy to take the occasional ride out on one of mine, but I eventually took pity up him and started to peruse the internet.

Late in December 2016 I found a 2001 Triumph Bonneville in amazing condition, with very low mileage and at a very reasonable price. Within a few weeks it had been viewed, paid for and delivered.

It was the perfect bike for TP. It had much more grunt and much better handling than his Yamaha 125 or my Enfields, but it wasn't so ridiculously powerful that he was tempted to ride at speeds beyond his level of experience.

Both TP and I really liked it and TP used to comment that he used to regularly get approached by men of a certain age that "used to have one  like that years ago".  30% was also rather keen on it. She loved the colour and really got in to riding pillion, as it had a very comfortable saddle and handled reasonably well "two up".

I even located a few upgrades and she sported twin clocks, alloy indicators and a much nicer rear light unit in time for TP's birthday in the November of 2017.

As I said, we both really liked it, but we never actually fell in love with it. It was incredibly heavy to push around and the performance from the air/oil cooled 790 cc engine was nothing to write home about.*

I eventually took her down to Arden Motorcycles and left her there to be sold on a commission basis. Surprisingly one of the partners decided to buy her and gave her a street scrambler conversion.

The Bonnie hasn't been the only change in the garage, but I'll leave that until I have another crappy day at work.

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* I originally had it restricted so that TP could legally ride it on his A2 license. However a mechanic may have inadvertently removed the carburettor restriction device a few months later,

Picture Post

It was going to be challenging to make Monday look interesting.  I had a minor rant on a call at work, the dogs were walked and I popped down to Kathy's cottage to put a feeder on the shook swarm.

See, I did say I couldn't make it look like fun, so I thought I'd go with a picture post. Now I do like an unusual botanical subject, so how about this "beauty"?

I'm reliably informed by Wikipedia that this is Aristolocaceae grandiflora or the Pelican Flower as it is better known. This strangely evocative* flower is one of the largest in the world and reach 60 cm in length.

30% and I encountered this one at a butterfly farm on our visit to Costa Rica in 2018.

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* It was interesting that many of our tour companions commented that it seemed vaguely pornographic, but none of us could explain why?

A shook swarm

Today's weather was much improved compared to yesterday and, although cool to start, it looked like it was going to be a fine day.

My plan was to inspect the bees and mow the lawn and I really wanted to leave these until the weather warmed up.  Ideally it should be above 15 degrees centigrade to open up a hive and I always prefer to mow a dry sward.

This meant that I had the early morning to finalise volume five of the Journal, upload it to the Blurb website and place an order for a single copy. The Gods appeared to have smiled down at me today, as I tracked down a 25% discount code just before committing to purchase and a good amount was deducted as I checked out.

I then headed down to Kathy H-R's cottage and checked on the two hives. One was doing reasonably well and the other was absolutely booming.  The very prolific colony was rammed with bees and had nearly filled it's super with nectar. A second super was added to give the bees some space and, hopefully, reduce their urge to swarm. Surprisingly I was also rewarded with a glimpse of each of the two Queens* as I worked my way through the hives

Back at home lunch was taken and then I wandered out to inspect the four hives in the garden.  The first was fine and required little work, other than a clean up of some brace comb and the squashing of a few queen cups.

I then moved on to the second hive and was gobsmacked by the difference. It was very busy and had laid down significant quantities of nectar in the super.  As I started to inspect the brood box it was apparent that this colony was going to swarm as there were a number of queen cells developing. I needed to respond immediately, so a Nucleus Box was fetched and I started to search for the queen.

My plan was to create a shook swarm. **  This management technique should create two colonies rather than letting nature take its course and watching the original queen and half the colony bugger off in to the wide blue yonder with little chance of catching them.

I eventually located the queen and placed her in a small nucleus hive with a couple of frames of brood, a couple of frames of stores and shook a frame of bees in to keep her company. The shook swarm was sealed up and then TP and I took it down the road and sited it in Kathy's garden.

This left two more hives to inspect. One was doing well and second super was added to create room for the bees. The second was fine, but needed nothing more than a standard inspection.

Its early in the year for swarming behaviour and the swarming season lasts through until July.  That means three months of preventative management. I may need to consider brood reduction to keep them in check.

After the fun and games with the bees, I was ready for a kip, but I fulfilled my promise and the lawn was shorn first.

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*  They can be challenging to spot, especially in a large colony and, as an alternative, I often resort to checking for eggs or young larvae to confirm that the colony has an active, laying queen.
** A shook swarm is a management method where the beekeeper removes the queen and four or five frames of stores and brood. These are all placed in a nucleus hive and a few thousand bees are shaken in from the original hive.
The nucleus hive with the shook swarm is then sealed and relocated a few miles away. At its new location it is opened up and the colony is provided with a feeder filled with syrup to sustain them.
In due course the nucleus will be transferred to a full size hive as the number of bees increase.
The original colony is closed up and left well alone for about a month. Hopefully the queen cells will hatch and the young queen will have a successful mating flight, returning to start laying and thereby creating a new colony.

Remember, 50% of the population is below average intelligence.

Today's weather was pretty miserable.  The day started with heavy rain which eventually petered out leaving an overcast sky and a chilly breeze.

A consequence of this was that I spent much of the day sat at my desk polishing the turd that is volume 5 of the Journal. I've sort of proof read it and performed a visual check of the page layouts and formatting. I even managed to find my way in to the Blurb files of an earlier volume, so that I could check the RGB values* for the cover and thereby ensure that volume 5 will match volumes 1 to 4 on the bookshelf.

TP and I eventually persuaded ourselves that we should walk the dogs and headed out on to the Three Miler in the early afternoon. It was obvious that a significant proportion of the village had the same idea and we must have encountered 15 people in the first half mile of our walk.

It also appears that the International System of Units (SI) has redefined the meter and it is now 60% of it's former length.  This observation is based on the Social Distancing applied by most of the people we encountered and also at the village shop.

Not being particularly tall myself, it appears that, as a result of the revised Covid-19 definition of the meter, I will now be able to walk under tables without ducking.

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* R 0, G 159, B 0 ...  if anyone is interested.

Filling in some of the gaps

In any spare time I had today I finished copying the last of the Journal entries from the Blogger web site in to the Blurb book wright software on my Mac.

Once I've finished formatting, editing and proof reading, these will become the fifth hardback volume of the Bad Man's Journal.

As I scanned the entries from 2016 it dawned on me that the Journal recorded the trials and tribulations of my first year of beekeeping, but I had left the story unfinished.  At the point of abandonment I had two hives, one of which had been re-queened, and the beekeeping year was coming to a close.

Well I can report that both of those colonies survived the Winter of 2016 / 17 and over the intervening years the number of hives has increased. At the start of this year I had five in the back garden and one a mile, or so, down the road beside Kathy H-R's cherry tree.

We took our first honey crop in 2017 and our two hives gave us 90 lbs of honey.  As the number of hives has increased, so has our crop and we produced 145 lbs in 2018 and close to 185 lbs last year.

We've designed some rather natty packaging and seem to have developed a reputation for producing a quality local honey. As a result we have no problem selling a good portion of our crop from the doorstep.

 We have been invited to sell at a couple of local food fairs and even went "International" for a while when the Cardiff Deli, that employed TP, decided to stock our Honey.  Now a Deli is exactly the sort of outlet where you would expect to find a small scale local honey, but our honey has also done really well being sold from a local Hairdresser and currently from a rather bijou little Jeweller in Alcester.

We're still alive

Earlier in the week 30% had served up a splendid Lamb and Chickpea curry.

We tucked in and were thoroughly enjoying it when TP commented that the Lime Pickle tasted a little odd. I sampled it and agreed that it lacked the expected zesty tang. At this point I enquired about the Use by Date and 30% waffled that Lime Pickle didn't go off.

I reached for the jar and saw a date in the middle of 2016!

We're both still breathing and I think the jar has been thrown away.

The irony is that one of 30%'s favourite Sunday morning jobs is to go through the kitchen cupboards; tidying and seeing what provisions are needed ...  Checking sell-by-dates is obviously not part of the job description.