As I sat waiting to turn left onto the A38, an older gentleman was sat opposite me waiting to turn right. I was on my Cinelli, he was in his yellow convertible Ferrari. And I thought to myself that as Italian stallions go, at that precise moment, mad though it may seem, I would rather be on mine, than in his. This may seem strange. It may in fact be strange. But the truth is stranger than fiction, and this is no word of a lie.
There were two very happy jackdaws in Mark. Have I ever mentioned that I quite like jackdaws? All dapper and silvery in the sunshine, they were busy being exceedingly pleased that enough remains in the county coffers to cut the verges. What looks like mere grass cuttings to you and me clearly looked a lot like eiderdown to them, and was being carted away in chunks to line their nests. Had their brave hearts already won fair maidens? Or was this part of creating a boudoir to attract the lucky birds upon whom they had grand designs? I’d ask, but quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
Near Shapwick I overtook a bumblebee. We were both flying along in the same direction, possibly equally inelegantly, and I went past with it at precisely eye level. For some reason this made me giggle. I wonder at what level it could see me? Compound eye level presumably. And if it would have made it giggle if bumblebees could giggle? Can they giggle? Or are bumblebees as a whole so fed up of being told how aerodynamically impossible their flight is that as a species they have had a sense of humour failure and that buzzing you hear is just them trying to drown it all out, while mentally repeating “urban myth” over and over in self-soothing mantra stylee. By the way, I’ve written the word giggle too often; apparently I am semantically satiated.
The times they are a-changing. Oh, and how! And the bugs they are a-hatching. I’d really like to know how to avoid inhaling/eating/carrying home in my bra* them. One presumes the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. But if there had been much of that then there would have been less of them, so that’s not helping solve the problem. I brought some home with me. A few of them even survived the journey, to go forth and multiply somewhere they were most definitely neither expecting nor supposed to be. Thus the gene pool of small black flying irritating things locally is enhanced, and I have probably served to make the problem worse rather than better, though I feel that their extinction was unlikely anytime soon and therefore find my conscience remarkably untroubled on that matter. Maybe it makes up for the ones I ate. (*delete as appropriate).
A weed is just a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered, or but an unloved flower. A plant that grows somewhere it was neither intended nor wanted to be. But weeds can be beautiful too. As with so many things, it’s all just a matter of perspective. Take the dandelion. It doesn’t sound like much. But its name derives from the French ‘dent de lion‘, meaning ‘lion’s tooth’, which refers to its deeply toothed, deep green leaves, and which is positively poetic. In your lawn, in the cracks on your patio, it’s a weed. But someone has left it here, it’s not doing anyone any harm, and looked at with the right eye, it’s practically a chrysanthemum. A word that once won me a prize when I spelt it out loud correctly.
The sands of time in the dandelion clock have run dry, I think it’s time to take my leaf… It’s a lady’s excuse me, not a gentleman’s though. Maybe you don’t think I’m a lady but, as I think we’ve now established, it’s all a matter of perspective. Nonetheless I’m tired of dancing, and beggars can’t be choosers. Shall I show myself out?
Cycling time: 1:51
Distance: 31.4 miles
Avg: 16.9 mph
ODO: 4161.8 miles
*grin*
