This uninspiring photo is of a hoverfly hovering in the garden. Please note it is a hoverfly – not a bee. But it buzzes just like a bee. In fact its common English name is the drone fly because of its noise. And when one comes in the house Jo leaves the room – very quickly.
If, as occurred the other day, I happen to be having a lie down, Jo finds herself separated from her laptop, her phone and her paperwork until I get up. Jo being separated from her phone for half an hour results in a severe attack of delirium tremens (colloquially, the DTs, "the horrors", "the fear", "the abdabs" or "the rats"; afflicted individuals referred to as "jitterbugs" in 1930s Harlem slang; literally, "shaking delirium" or "trembling madness" in Latin). So I arrived downstairs to find an unhappy Jo who became even more unhappy when she found out she’d been excluded from the room by a hoverfly.
“But it didn’t hover!”
OK, so sue it, I thought. Sometimes they don’t – especially when they are travelling from A to B trying to find a way out!
Jo doesn’t usually utter profanities (except at the computer) but she managed to call the marital status of the parents of this little insect into question!
Slightly off topic here, but thank you so much for the lovely card! And if you and Jo happen to be at a loose end next Saturday night then you would be more than welcome in Bolton for our little party. I can't promise there won't be any flying insects though, we are out in the countryside...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the invite - despite what I said a few weeks ago about anyone who turned down an invite to the wedding of the millennium we'll be in Exeter at my daughter's. Have a great time (and judging by the forecast the open-top bus would not have been a good idea!)
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