Do bees worry?

Hello everyone. So what do you think? Do bees worry? I photographed this lovely one today in my garden on the sedum which is just starting to bloom and change colour. It ends up a deep red colour in the autumn. Bees are of course very busy and work very hard. Do you think they are worried they will not collect enough pollen by the end of the day? Or that their queen bee will not be safe and well fed? Are they happy in their work, just being healthy bees, doing what they were born to do? I suspect they are simply driven by instinct and carry out their chores without fear of the consequences.

I guess I’m thinking about this as I had a worrisome week last week. Every task I am working on at work I am also expending ridiculous amounts of energy worrying about the fifteen other urgent tasks I have yet to start and may not get to by the end of the day. And I am constantly questioning myself whether I am really doing the top priority job rather than the second top priority etc. And worrying about what things will be like when I am on leave in October and what a mess I will come back to afterwards. It’s been quite a relaxing weekend, nonetheless. I think the bees just reminded me of my workload for tomorrow! Hopefully it will not be as bad as I think.

Friday night I got to see David’s band play, a socially distanced private do for the immediate neighbours of Geoff the drummer. As usual I thought they were all amazing. David played guitar and sung his heart out, looked like he was born to do this, so in his comfort zone on the stage doing his music. They play a lot of Eagles and 60s and 70s music, with 3 singers so lots of lovely harmonies going on. The neighbours (and I) were dancing in the street. A couple of little children were really having a ball. One little boy apologised for not paying for a ticket, so cute, it was a free event. He was still dancing in his pyjamas later on.

Yesterday morning I woke up a bit jaded and tired but I was met by these lovely sunflowers that had turned their heads around the corner to greet me. As I’ve said before, it is hard not to be happy when you look at a sunflower, especially when you have grown it yourself… and there are three smiling faces…

It put me in a productive mood so I got out my sewing machine and successfully mended the hole in the bottom of the camping chair bag, the chair I used for the concert last night. There’s something very holistic and satisfying about sewing and about mending something. It’s now hanging up in the garage without fear of the chair falling out of the broken bag onto someone’s head.

My next task will be to mend a hole in my rucksack, provided the material is not too thick for the sewing machine.

Last night we had a pleasant meal sitting outside at Gurkha Royale, one of our favourite local restaurants, Nepalese food. The staff are always so friendly and efficient and we LOVE the momos which are steamed dumplings with spicy lamb or chicken in them. There were a few spots of rain but we survived outside, and it was exciting to see the new moon while we ate.

We walked home and David did some more astronomy. The light pollution is still so much less than before the pandemic. We had a good view of Jupiter and of Saturn. You could see the rings around Saturn quite clearly. It’s quite nice to feel small and insignificant in the universe from time to time…

Today we went for a walk in Windsor Great Park again, one of our favourite walks. There were no cows today. We joked that the Queen must have had a big barbecue party and eaten them all. Instead we saw lots and lots of acorns looking so fresh and green and tidy in their little cups.

We looked at this crop growing in the field, but couldn’t work out what it was.. some kind of greens… chard?

Everything else just looked stunning as usual. Love love love the old oak trees, some of them are hundreds of years old.

I think this one below is a chestnut tree.

Climb the hill back to the car…

This bracken reminds me of my childhood playing in Richmond Park.

Even the dead trees are beautiful.

Off to cook the cauliflower and green beans and to make the cheese sauce to go with the roast gammon and roast potatoes. Yum. There will be chocolate mousse for pudding. More yum. I am so chuffed when you tell me you have seen an idea on my blog and then made it for yourself, or adapted it a bit to better suit yourself and your family. So chuffed. I hope I can continue to inspire and entertain you with my Waffle… 😊x