Sunday 27 January 2013

Allotment Notebook 6. Miniature Holy Grail

uncensored extracts from Greg Becker's allotment diary






Translation:

The inside of a tool box is not the usual place to find a miniature holy grail which turned out to be the beginnings of a wasps nest, containing about eight perfect hexagons surrounded by wafer thin shells circling round it forming a bowl or cup shape attached at its base to the vertical side of the box. (hell that was a long sentence!

A single wasp was buzzing around but unlike a bee did not attack me when I tried to remove the nest. The tool box is also the home of my collection of stray golf balls and the similarity of size and close positioning of the nest to them struck me as surreal.

I removed the embryo nest, placed it inside a small flower pot and took it home. On being told it was a wasps nest my daughters somehow thought it might sting them and backed off. Although they were much more likely to harm it than it them. The slightest pressure causes its delicate tissue walls to crumble.

So I placed it on the mantel piece next to a photograph of my youngest daughter dressed as a fairy.  

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