Bee Orchid's most read articles

On Tuesday, I had a great haircut; the first one this year I think though I’m not certain. Working like a dog, there was little time for frivolities such as a haircut! My son and I then had photos done in a Tardis-like photo booth. Him for an ID for when he leaves for university, me for a passport renewal. Good grief mine was bad. I look so tired. I had one done a few months back and looked awful, so this time I put on some makeup and a bright blouse to give me some colour. Better, but not good.…

After 2 hours of frustration and the network dropping, I’ve finally got my new computer up and running. Back in 2005, I bought a new computer with my first instalment of my student loan. It was expensive, and a great machine, and the staff in the computer shop installed everything for me. Not so anymore… My biggest complaint with Windows 10 is that it doesn’t come with Solitaire nor Mahjong preinstalled. Why not? I’ve tried a free version from the app store, but I hate it! Anybody know how to…

…On a wet and windy Sunday morning. Now and again, I open YouTube and just see what’s available. I’ve been listening to Gerry Rafferty – Get it right next time, it really speaks to me – when I noticed an ‘ad’ for Enigma. Man, that took me back, and I spent half hour or so listening to various Enigma tracks before bed. It left me feeling very mellow, and Saturday night, in spite of the rain lashing against the windows, I slept well. Although I like Enigma, and more contemporary music too, my favo…

Here, the weather has been very changeable. Monday, we had a very hard frost and my bedroom got down to 13C. The cold was making me cough and I got up at 4am and put the heating on. Tuesday it rained, heavily, most of the day but at least it was warmer. Wednesday it drizzled, all day long. We then had some frost on the car late in the night. Thursday has started damp. It’s hard to know what to wear from one day to the next. My landlord was supposed to call over on Wednesday to ‘measure up’ f…

Forget the three R’s of reading, writing, and arithmetic – whoever came up with that one needs their head looking at - I prefer the ‘new’ three r’s of: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Let me just say; I’ve been recycling for many years courtesy of education from my Grandfather. He was a big believer in reduce. If he could, he would reuse something. If he couldn’t reuse something, he would do his best to recycle it. He taught me well. Locally we have a kerb pickup of recycling which is great, h…

Money, we’re told, is the root of all evil, meaning all wrongdoings can be traced back to the excessive attachment of money. But what is excessive? Is wanting enough money, and more, to live a comfortable life excessive? What level of comfort are we talking? I wouldn’t want a mansion to be honest, but something with a bigger garden and kitchen would be nice. The popular song by the Flying Lizards states ‘what it don’t get, I can’t use.’ Whilst love is good, it doesn’t pay the bills and there’…

The Matriarch is still in hospital, and whilst there has been some improvement, I’m still unclear if they will send her home soon. A nurse was asking all sorts of questions about her home life and between my Mother and I, we managed to answer them. This suggests maybe they are planning to send her home? She’s been moved 3 times whilst on the one large ward, and now she’s on a totally different ward at the far end of the hospital. Seriously, it must be at least a mile’s walk from the car park, an…

In another lifetime (meaning a long time ago) I worked in the Civil Service. My department was an export/import insurance arm for the government. Now, like any company, there are good employees, and not so good ones, and despite it being a long time ago, I still get quite frustrated when people berate the whole of the civil service and its workers, and bang on about so-called gold-plated pensions. Whenever the press wants to complain about government, they blame the civil servants and remind us…

It’s been a long week, and it’s only Wednesday. Monday, I did quite a bit of housework. Due to snow and ice, I didn’t go out except to walk the dog. Tuesday, the weather was better, and I met up with my kid sister and we visited with Mum. I was feeling inept and had trouble parking the car that day. The lifts at the hospital are pretty useless and we walked up one flight of stairs. These flights are almost twice as many steps as an average house by the way. We then took the lift up one flight, t…

These past few days I wouldn’t say that I’m bored, however I have felt at a loose end. The weather has improved somewhat and whilst glorious sunshine hasn’t been much in abundance, neither has wind and rain for which I’m grateful. Since Thursday I’ve dusted and vacuumed the whole house, cleaned the bathroom, been grocery shopping, done laundry including the ironing… I’ve taken the Ship’s Dog for a good walk to the further park today, the TV is boring me, I’m almost finished yet another book and…

After too many days of hot sunny weather, we’ve had a little rain at last. The forecast is for showers all day, and we had a nice amount first thing, but the garden could use a little more. We’re forecast rain again Friday morning, and thunderstorms on Sunday. Fingers crossed. Obviously, I don’t want rain for the week of the move or the plants may be too heavy, but rain beforehand will be gratefully received. The Ship’s Dog has had his final bath at his usual spa (Pets at Home to you) and he…

Of late, in my part of the world, we’ve had about half inch of rain a day, every day, for the past 5 days. I know this because I have a large plant trough on the deck that I’ve taken the plants out of, and each day I’ve emptied it into a bucket, and then into the water butt. That’s a lot of rain. Especially for July. Sunday the day started bright and sunny and I quickly climbed the rigging and put out some laundry. It was almost dry when I noticed the skies darkening. I quickly shinned up the…

Now that Christmas is over with for another year, I’ve started to go through the cupboards to see what I haven’t used in a long while. With a move this year, it seems prudent to do this and if I haven’t used something in ages, then I clearly don’t need it. The attic has been cleared out, now it’s the turn of the cupboards. I took 2 carrier bags of serving bowls and vases to the local charity shop. Nice items, however they have no monetary or sentimental value to me, so somebody else will hop…

I love breakfast. By morning, after not eating since about 5pm the previous day, I really enjoy my breakfast, be it toast (my all-time favourite), muffins (a rare treat) blueberry pancakes, bacon sandwich, porridge, muesli… The choices just go on. Like any normal pirate, now and again, I do like a bowl of cereal. Recently though, I had a bowl of cornflakes only to discover they were really stale. I’m the only one who eats cereal with milk, so it’s rare that I finish a box before they go stale. I…

This week we’ve had a small invasion of ladybirds in the garden. Not hordes, but more than I’ve seen in a good many years and Thursday I had to shut all the windows as they were crawling up the windows, the kitchen wall, and the back door. Weird. Only one landed on me as I was hanging out washing and I was able to encourage it to fly off. They’re pretty enough, and harmless (I think) though it’s slightly creepy to see them crawling up the windows. One time, whilst staying at a Tai Chi retreat…

We’ve had some rain here, and with the snow slowly but surely melting, things are back to what passes for normal around here. I was surprised to note that our road had been visited by a snowplough and gritter, though not that surprised to see that the snow had been piled up at both ends of the road. So, travelling along our road was a breeze, however getting out of the street was a non-starter unless you had a 4x4. How stupid! We were all snowed in for 3 days; Sunday wasn’t too bad if you were c…

After goodness knows how long, we finally had a dry day here on Sunday. Saturday was forecast dry, however we had thundery showers in the afternoon that left about quarter inch of water in the trough. We’ve awoken to rain again on Monday, and Tuesday and Wednesday are also forecast to be wet. Sunday was lovely though, and I managed to shin up and down the rigging no fewer than 3 times. Now, I have a huge pile of ironing to do. I also managed to pull a whole bucket of weeds though the Ship’s Dog…

One week on, and the Deckhand has been experiencing ‘teething’ problems with his on-site house share. We Skyped the one day for over an hour, and he seemed quite angry about it all, and a bit lonely. Fresher’s week was a bust as far as he was concerned, and I’m hoping that once classes start on Monday, that he’ll settle down and be happier. His room has a small window and due to being on the ground floor, it opens barely a crack so that nobody can get in that way. It has a leaky seal, so the…

Wow is it Monday again? This past week has flown by. Despite my cold finally coming up for air, and an upset stomach to boot, I’ve had some good rest this week and even slept in 3 mornings. By sleeping in, I mean I’ve slept past my usual 5 or 6am wake up. Despite being windy and wet here, the temperatures have been quite mild. The Ship has been tossed about a little, in the high winds, though swinging gently in my hammock has been restful. One night, I slept for almost 9 hours. My leg was hurtin…

Early hours of Tuesday we had a tremendous storm. The lightning woke me at 3am and I stood at the window watching it for about 30 minutes. I’ve never seen so much lightning! The thunder was tremendous and even woke my son – he could sleep through a bomb blast. I swear the storm settled almost over my house and didn’t move for the next 3 hours. Sadly, we had very little rain and when I walked the dog it was like a Turkish Bath – hot, steamy, damp, and very muggy. The ground has already dried out…