July 16 06

We breakfast outside in the glorious sunshine today. The heat becomes intense and Holly retreats to the cool of the house while Jessie and Rio insist on panting it out, a little longer. Gaynor remarks on how loud the bee sound as he explores the unoccupied starlings nest just above her head. And there is quite a sound and I must check it out in case he’s a scout bee looking for a home.

July 17th 06

Today we decide is a good day to clear out the shed. I’m convinced the small circular clay nest the swallows have build in the little V over the door has been abandoned as I’ve had no sighting of any activity for some time. Gaynor disagrees pointing out that the clay on the upper part of the nest is damp: a work still in progress. Yes I can see now – a few inches have ben added. We abandon brushes and buckets and go for a coffee instead. At midnight Gaynor spots an Emerald Green moth on the wall under the outside light. He’s quite beautiful.

July 22 06

A few years back I did something very unwise. I was clearing out the fridge, and scraping away the meagre remnants from the bottom of some old jam pots, I decided rather than waste it, I’d give it to a wasp that happened to be peering in the window at the time. He was most appreciative as was a companion who happened along and as I continued to clear out my pots, they continued to feast.
He was there again next day and I tried a little marmalade and next day, as several had joined him, I left out the peelings of a small apple. I now became drawn to the creatures, sitting down myself with my mug of tea – on the other side of the glass of course – and watching fascinated as the apple skins – so thorough were they at – ‘cleaning their plates’ – changed into miniature discarded scrolls as the thin layer of tasty pulp vanished. As their numbers increased, word having gone out that there was free food a-going, so did their food platter and so did the time I spent watching them. Their last day outside the kitchen window, I cut a large apple in half and left it face down on their saucer. Within minutes it was entirely covered by a sea of black and yellow – a little beaded bonnet that reminded me of one of those rich tapestry portraits of one of the Medichi children but no hat of hers could rival the apple bonnet gleaming on my window sill. I was curious to see, that even with no standing room left on the apple, there was no pushing or shoving or snapping – if wasps do snap – but only general courtesy and politeness.
The plan of moving them to a second and then to the furthest window away from the hall door did not go well and brought with it my first feelings of anxiety. They were there ahead of me next day so I backed off smartly and at dawn the following day, placed a large plastic the container cut in half, on the furthest window ledge. Several insisted on returning to the kitchen window making entrance and exit difficult as they tapped on the glass and hovered around the door. I worried lest any of the dogs got stung, for unlike me, if an attack should materialize, they unfortunately couldn’t jump into an overflowing bath with a stray for air till the threat was over. In truth I had no straws in the house and due to the drought like conditions over the previous weeks I doubt that the water tank contained no more than a few inches of water, so a brimming bath was clutching at the straws I didn’t have.
I moved them as light was fading next evening, covering the container and the few remaining occupants with a tea towel and placing them in the thicket at the furthest extremities of the garden. Once positioned, I whipped off the cloth and ran like hell back to the safety of the house. It took several days for them to stop coming back to the windows and finally they were gone and the plastic container too, deserted. A sigh of relief and a valuable lesson learned.
That weekend I took the dogs away for a few days of open beaches and glorious freedom coming back greatly revived. I had left two black rubbish bags at he back the house, and my eye caught a movement. On inspection I realized the wasps had infiltrated both and the bags were visibly moving with the great activity within. I was instantly panicked and I rang a friend who advised me to take the bags immediately, put them in the car and bring them to the nearest dump. Not withstanding the fact that in those days the nearest dump was 50 miles away, I’m not sure I could concentrate on my driving with two heaving bags of irritated wasps sitting in the back seat.
I did something almost as stupid. I grabbed the bags and deposited them in my bathroom. The daft thinking here being was that I’d cut off any new arrival, but with no idea how to handle the ones already in situ. So they’re now mulling around my hall and bathroom and someone tells me to cover the bathroom window with black cardboard, another tells me to open the window to let them out again and all this while I’ve barricaded myself into the kitchen watching the activity through the glass panel and feeling weak when two wasps manage to crawl under the door, which I cover with tumblers till I was calm enough to deal with them. I’m supposed to be elsewhere but cancel, impossible to leave the fort with the ramparts under siege; the dogs safely locked away in the inner recesses of the castle. Two hours later I’m steeled and ready, wait till there a lull in the activity, and rush into the bathroom grab one teeming bag, return for the other and heave them out onto the grassy verge. Herbal teas calm the frayed nerves, and later when the last wasp has left the building, I make several forays outside, slash the bags in several places dispersing their contents in several different locations and with them the wasps. A few days later I retrieve the discarded rubbish, the wasps having finally flown.

July 22nd 06 (contd)

So today quick, decisive action is called for as during the last few days several more bees are hovering around the starlings bird box over the door.
Ann told me to pop in a face towel soaked in dettol to discourage nesting and I rang Ken to see if he’d come up and take the bird box down but he wasn’t in and I repeated the dettol dose next day when a few more bees appeared. Later I started a small bush fire in a bucket and placed it beneath the box and there was an evacuation of all of six who disappeared over the roof and away.
Three days on I was really jumpy. I now had discovered they were wasps not bees. Anyone I talked to pronounced that ‘they had to be got rid of ‘ and ‘dangerous and aggressive’ were the buzzzzz words of the experts. I myself had become totally freaked, my imagination completely out of control. A sudden change in the humming of the fridge, a plane passing overhead, the kettle warming up had my heart racing, panicking as I looked for escape routes through the back window (Holly in one arm, Jessie in my handbag and Rio I felt could be the decoy as they’d have trouble getting through her fur coat) as I imagined swarms attacking from all sides. At this point I was willing Ann to ring me back with some positive reinforcements like maybe she’d come out and sort it for me. I did get out of the house and took Holly to the sea and waited there till it was so dark I almost lost her and needed to use my torch once I was back at base. And shining the beam into the bird box, there loomed a perfectly formed wasps nest. I think that’s when I called on the Assisi of St Francis and began to question what exactly I was afraid of. And it was in fact, firstly that I’d have to bring in the men in the white coats with their spray guns and there’d be dead wasps all over the place and for the next few weeks I’d have to grapple with exiled wasps returning and finding no place to go except into my house. When a calm took hold I also realized that in fact this nest must have been there for about 5 weeks and in all that time wasps were in and around the house and I quite calmly just shunted them out again. In fact I was living with this situation without knowing it, so the conclusion was I could continue to do so. When Ann textd at midnight on the 4th day since discovery of wasp on my doorstep, I textd back to say I’d spent a long while calming myself down and not to say anything to trigger my jangled nerves further. And she didn’t.