On my moving house ‘To Do’ list is an item that says ‘Remove bee bubble wrap’.
That’s because here, in this house I have rented for six-and-a-half years, the bees come to visit every November. They check the house out, buzz around a lot and live in the walls for a while. The more intrepid explorers come inside through the old-fashioned vents in the ceiling. I don’t mind a few bees, but one day there were so many flying around my courtyard the air was thick with them – like a noisy, fuzzy fog – and I was too scared to go out the back door. I called the Bee Man that time, but by the time he turned up there wasn’t one to be found. Pesky things! The bee man said they were most likely scout bees, who wouldn’t ever set up a permanent home here. They just like to visit. I realised I could stuff bubble wrap in the old vents to stop the bees getting in, and I learned to live with their appearance quite happily.
The annual bee visit is one of the quirks of this house. So is the racket of the trains whizzing past, the cold seeping up through the floorboards from the basement, the regular cacophony from the neighbours’ cats (Oh, WHY do they congregate under my bedroom window for their love-fests?) and the fact that the shower is in a cupboard.