Ladybirds

[veggiechicken]

Thanks TS. That's confirmation that the hoover should stay in the cupboard!

[lottie dolly]

Thanks TS. That's confirmation that the hoover should stay in the cupboard!

mine often stays put,it's noisy pitch has my ear drums,have to have ear defenders on,apart from that hoovering can wear out your carpets,we have to have an excuse at the ready,don't we girls

[veggiechicken]

Good thinking Lottie Dolly! I'd hate to have to replace the carpets. I've always believed in a protective coating of dirt (not on me but the house).

[snohare]

Being all bachelorish, I never hoover until the floor is crunchy. (And if the floor is crunchy, well I find I am better with a shovel...)
Socks are the fastest crumb catchers I know of outside of the chicken world. I think of a washing machine filter as an honorary vacuum cleaner.
What happens with flies, I believe, is not quite hibernation. I think it is called being torpid. Quite simply, as the temperature drops they become less energetic, slow down, and eventually become immobile. (I wonder if flies daydream while paralysed ?)
At the end of the summer of course what happens is that you get flies buzzing around windows; if there is any kind of cool air current, as found in windows left ajar, or in the ventilation slots, that is where the flies will congregate come dark (because having arrived by random they have less energy with which to leave). Eventually, you end up with a heap of them lurking in the crevices, all ready to come out when an errant blast of warmth hits...with all their little 'uns.
Just let's be thankful for little Ariadne and her family, who though not frostproof, choose the same circumstances to create a silken coccoon of eggs, ready to hatch out hungry and eager to eat...or we'd be knee deep in flies !

[veggiechicken]

Why are you always so spot on with your observations, Snohare? I had thought of asking why there were always flies in the ventilation slots of the window but thought you would think I was a real dumbo. (Well I am, but what the heck).
One thing I am puzzled over though - how can your floor gather crumbs when you have a dog around? Are you telling me that your dog has a food bowl? This sounds like boasting and I didn't consider that to be one of your weaknesses. I have trained my dog to wash the kitchen floor, with her tongue, in order to clean up all the food residue that I slop. Its a little more difficult with crumbs on the carpet as the fibres tickle but she soon gets over the sneezing and gets back on the job.
Time to go now, I'm feeling torpid (what a wonderful word for winter doldrums).

[Glutton4...]

... not quite hibernation. I think it is called being torpid. Quite simply, as the temperature drops they become less energetic, slow down, and eventually become immobile ...

That's me!

[snohare]

Ah well Veggie, there is nothing like somnolence1 to allow one to see all sorts of things not generally noticed by those humans healthy or wealthy enough to aye be rushing around. I don't yet know the birds who come to feed on my lawn by their plumage markings, but that is probably just my poor eyesight; and despite being male (all internet forum rumours to the contrary notwithstanding ) I am inclined to be thinking of processes as I wash windows and see all these bluebottles in the crevices...throw in thirty years of reading about tropisms and the like2 and you end up with someone with lots of time to see and think about very small things, with lots of "processing power".
My dog is a two bowl dog, one for water and one for food. It has to be thus, as I have all the sure footedness of a lame akathistic haggis on whisky.3
Also, being a labrador living in a linoed house, there is no chance whatsoever of survivors from previous food accidents, so to save endless sniffing her food goes one place and one place only, unless it is a choice treat worth re-treating to her bed with.
Enough pratchetting4, I must go give said dog a bath...







1 another lovely word: that's torpidity with one's eyes open, by the way
2which told me why flies come into the house, then buzz about so annoyingly when they obviously want out, and how to get them out without a fly swatter
3 A particularly apposite description, very Freudian as I am addressing the haggis tomorrow evening.
4 Pratchetting: compulsive use of footnotes.5
5 Revealing a style of thinking genetically affected by onions.6
6Not any particular sort, except perhaps those inclined to bring tears to eyes, just any onions displaying multiple, ever deeper layers.

[veggiechicken]

Sometimes, Snohare, but only sometimes, you are just way to edimificated for me. My cerebelly is indistrubably challengified and I am forcificated into admissorial defeatation by your masterferial knowlificide of the languorage.
Are ye no addressing the haggis a wee bit early tomorrow?

[snohare]

Are ye no addressing the haggis a wee bit early tomorrow?

How did you know it was going to be 7.30 pm ??

I wondered who had hacked into my hotmail account...

Well, not my decision - probably because my friends all said, "If we say Monday, he might manage it by Thursday"...but no, like Christmas, there is now a Burns Supper season, covering at least two weeks of January, and sometimes into February...me, I eat haggis regularly.

[veggiechicken]

I'm sometimes invited to my neighbours for haggis and neeps, (veggie haggis in my case). Better write a poem just in case, or shall I use the one I've just written for Cardiff Steve on the emotive topic of World Peace?