I don’t know about you, but I’m terrible for earworms. A couple of weeks ago I was stung by a bee – I can’t remember ever being stung by a bee or a wasp. While bees rarely sting, unless threatened (and many of them can’t sting), wasps are another matter – I suppose I should count myself lucky. The incident in question happened while I was walking under trees at Shibden Park with *GR, Rosie, Little Bud and Little Bean. I thought I felt a leaf land on my head so I tried to remove it, only to feel a shooting pain in the middle finger of my left hand. The finger quickly tripled in size (that might be a slight exaggeration), throbbing and burning as it turned the colour of beetroot. Rosie very calmly and deftly managed to remove the sting (back to that later). GR and I made haste to the café in the park thinking they would have ice – no – but they did have some ice cold water, so I dunked my finger in that, while GR was despatched to the car for antihistamines and hydrocortisone cream. Little Bud was most concerned about Gary’s (will explain) poorly finger and kissed it better, which made all the difference. The swelling went down after a few hours but my finger remained painful for a couple of days, during which the earworm started – you know the one – when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my favourite things, and then I don’t feel so bad.
While in my garden another line from the song kept coming into my head – raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens – at least that’s how I’ve been singing it all my life, but I now realise it’s actually raindrops on roses. I’ve seen plenty of those in the last few weeks – my roses have put on a magnificent second show and of course we’ve now had plenty of rain.
I think my worst misheard lyrics are from Madonna’s La Isla Bonita. As a gardener, often afflicted by the condition, I wondered why she was so enamoured with lumbago – I fell in love with lumbago. It wasn’t until I saw the lyrics in print that I realised she fell in love with San Pedro. The other thing I didn’t question for some years, was why a young girl would be described as having eyes like potatoes. I finally thought it through and decided that as the song was about a Spanish sounding island, it must be eyes like pesetas. It was only this week that I discovered the line is in fact young girl with eyes like the desert. You have a listen to it and tell me honestly, do you either hear potatoes or pesetas? Anyway, I doubt I will be able to break the habit of a lifetime (can you believe, that song was released nearly 40 years ago?)
Coming back to my sting, the bee that stung me was a female honey bee (the males can’t sting). I know this because they are the only bees that leave their stinger in. I feel so sad, because the act of leaving it in, means they die, as some of their insides come out with the stinger – what a horrible end. She was only defending herself as my big fingers will have seemed to be attacking her. Note to self – make sure to ask someone else to check my head (without using fingers) if I think foliage has fallen on it.
Coming back to Gary – Little Bud is talking a lot now – he’s having a little bit of trouble with the word Granny. I don’t mind – in fact I quite like it, which is just as well as the rest of the family seems to have followed suit!
In among all the drama and singing, I have been doing some gardening. I’ve taken cuttings of roses, lavender and penstemons and potted up lots of strawberry runners. Over the summer I enjoyed many, probably too many, iced lattes. Annoyingly many cafés serve them in plastic containers, rather than glasses that can be washed and reused. I’m an obsessive recycler, to the point that GR despairs sometimes. My latte cups with lids have made great little propagators for cuttings – I’ll be able to make use of them for many years to come!
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Rambling Rose 