I am lying in bed. A bumblebee is buzzing between the blind and the window. It sounds like a power tool and is impossible to ignore. I don’t want to get up but have to do something. I have to release it and shoo it out. Earlier in the year we get cockchafers (May bugs) round here in Sussex. They are the size of new potatoes and even more difficult to ignore. I got a shock the first time I encountered one – I’d never seen such a huge flying insect during my childhood in Cheshire. I guess they do live up there, but maybe they’re just rarer?
In a tea garden in Litlington this afternoon. There’s a party of seventy-year-olds at the table nearby, talking at top volume. One man says to another: I’ve got a ’54 Gold Flash now. I take this to be a kind of motorbike from the ensuing conversation. I’d like to try that, says another. You wouldn’t be able to get your leg over it, says the first. I still manage to get my leg over these days, comes the reply – followed by much mirth. But the first man to use the words leg over confected this mirthful situation. He knew what he was doing. The second man was then obliged to play the part assigned to him – no doubt rather wearily.
Blackthorn 