Notes From Nat

Dear British Summer

So....along with a large portion of the UK’s industrial sector, even you’ve resorted to outsourcing to India these days? After doing a pretty shoddy job yourself over July and August... no sunshine, just rain and wind and grey cloud... you’ve decided to call on someone who actually knows what they’re doing?!

Your cousin, Indian Summer, has arrived in all her glory, bringing days of warm sunshine, beautiful blue skies and temperatures around 28°C. It’s almost October! Even the plants are confused... they were getting their autumn colours out but now wonder if it's spring again! As always, your timing is impeccable... what’s the use of all that gorgeous weather when I’m chained to my computer indoors? Could you not have invited her last week....when I was on holiday.... at the coast.... outdoors?

I’m just saying...

........


Dear British Bee Population

What have I ever done to you lot... apart from eating the odd pot of honey every now and again? Why have you taken to terrorising me? First there was the 'Bee Down The Back of My Shirt' incident on the train down to London to catch the crack o' dawn Eurostar a couple of weeks back... what was that all about? All good bees should have been tucked up in their hives at that time of the night!

Thank you for not stinging me, though, as that would not have been a good start to the day, and could have culminated in me having to whip up my top and ask one of my fellow passengers to pull out the sting. And there weren’t exactly a load of coherent (or sober!) people on the train that time of day...

Then there was the ‘Bee Up My Sleeve’ incident while hiking in Dorset... again, thank you for not stinging me, but what’s with the hitching a ride on Nat lark? God gave you wings.... use them!



........


Dear British Spider Population

What? Are you in cahoots with the Bees, conspiring to take advantage of my morbid fear of anything that crawls and flaps and buzzes? It’s bad enough that one of you tried to stowaway to Dorset in our 'cooler box'... that could have ended badly for the spider in question, with an experiment in arachnid cryogenics... instead, it ended...er... very badly for said spider... with an experiment in the effect of centrifugal forces from a Dyson vacuum cleaner on an arachnid body. Conclusion: spiders do not survive being sucked into vacuum cleaners. Just like all good scientists, I’ve run my experiment in duplicate... thanks to Spider #2 for volunteering for the Good of Science (I say "volunteered", when I mean "scuttled across the living room floor scaring the bejesus out of me", the evening we got back home).

I really must empty that Dyson dust trap some day...

Then there were the three (yes three!) spiders who lurked with intent in the bath tub of the Dorset Cottage. So that old nursery rhyme is true... Incy Wincy Spider does climb up the water pipe. I soon put a stop to that though ... by keeping the bath plug firmly in place.

Do not try to outwit Nat, dear spiders... you may have eight legs but you don’t have opposable thumbs...

Yours, etc

 Nat