We’d had family over Christmas, and as luck would have it, just as they were leaving after two days and we were seeing them off, a couple of Karleen’s friends arrived with a bag-full of drinks to spend the evening with us. To a solitary like myself, the boredom of exchanging inanities for several hours to a background of Pirates of the Caribbean on the TV was so intense that I went almost crazy. Animals trapped for fur have sometimes gnawed off a leg to escape. I kept leaving the room on flimsy excuses, finally achieving genuine stomach cramps, so that I could retire for the night gracefully with a glass of salts.
This finale to our evening provided a sharp contrast to the preceding days, in which our house-guests were not boring for a single moment. In fact we witnessed a miracle, in which angelic influence was apparent to us all, and I wish I could tell you the story. The deep honesty of blogging is made possible by keeping personal details vague—that’s one reason why I can’t. And I cannot tell you the inter-linked biographies, over a span of fifty years, of several people who . . . (unfinished)
Anyhow on each of two days we shared a country walk with Karleen’s mother, sister and/or nephew. The first took us around Branch Wood and up Cookshall Lane, through twilight and into night. We were the only disturbers of fields possessed by sheep and pheasants, the latter loudly complaining to warn their fellows further in the woods that the dreaded giants were around, possibly with deadly firesticks (or whatever they call shotguns in pheasant-language). In the corner of a field of turnips we saw some mysterious looming shapes, which I correctly guessed, but in any case there was a sign “Caution: beehives” to warn the curious. No buzzing was heard and I imagine the bees lay huddled within, hibernating. Were they dreaming of springtime turnip blossom? I found three turnips already uprooted, and put them in my bag, amid discussion as to whether it was theft.
Yesterday we went to Hughenden Park, and I found a wasp’s nest under a tree, somehow detached from its moorings, and brought it home. You see from the photo its cells exactly like a honeycomb, except made of wasp-paper (chewed wood-pulp) instead of beeswax. How do bees make wax? From nectar and pollen? Then I got to speculating whether there such a thing as wasp honey. If not, how do the wasps feed the larvae growing in each cell? Is wasp honey mythical, like the cockatrice, hatched by a serpent 
from the egg of a cock? As every child surely knows by instinct, wasp is to bee as cat is to dog, and horse is to cow, and goat is to sheep, and town mouse is to country mouse. In short, they are cousins. The wasp in defiant black and yellow stripes is the pirate bee, with a taste for junk food. Doughnuts and Pepsi interest it greatly, though its proper healthy food is surely bruised apples and over-ripe blackberries. Once sitting in a pub garden I was robbed of a morsel of ham from my sandwich by a wasp which flew off with it staggering like a bumblebee, its wings seeming underpowered for this payload.
I want to write about miracles and angels and God, but this post has reached its target length, and more house-visitors are about to arrive. Watch this space.
PS I discovered the truth about wasp honey, and it is stranger than imagination. See this site. Wasps don’t feed honey to their babies: they get it from their babies!
a wayfarer’s notes 
well, I'm glad you had the interesting GOOD guests, to help make up for the BORES. I'm afraid I'm a poor hostess for bores, after a polite interval I inevitably find that there is a deadline for something that I must work on. 😉
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Our “good” guests were close relatives, & they are anything but bores, though they stretch the definition of “good” to new limits. It's doubtful if any of them will read this blog, but even then, I can't say more!
Problem with the bores was that K gave them encouragement, whereas I would have deprived them of stimulation till they bored their own selves, though that might not have been enough to make them actually leave.
My idea of a good guest is one who doesn't break anything and doesn't require constant attention during waking hours. Our damages were restricted to a plate and two light-bulbs, all of which were artfully concealed by the guests concerned.
Are internet friendships less intrusive? When you have a good virus checker, yes. Until they forward you inspirational PowerPoint sermons and stale jokes about a President whose continued incumbency you do not wish to remember.
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i love guests, specially destructive guests who are under ten.
depriving them of stimulation? lol
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Vincent,
For the most part it sounds like an interesting holiday. I'm sorry you were bored into such a level as to create stomach distress though! lol!
I do admit to a bit of swelling anxiety with discussions of wasps as the memory of being about 5 years old and stung repeatedly by a very angry wasp is still quite fresh. Evidently wasps can sting multiple times unlike a bee, at least this variety did.
And the tease about the story you cannot share has left me curious, which of course isn't a bad thing to do to your readers (so long as it isn't too often lol!).
Happy Holiday week!
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Well I had intended to write more, Serenity. With our main house-guests installed, we had a surprise reunion of a mother and three grown-up daughters. the mother is ten years older than me but sometimes I felt that she and I were children, brother and sister, being kept in check by three rival mothers. At other times, I felt K and I were mother and father to three daughters, though one was her own mother.
But the miracle was one of redemption. One of the daughters was not even going to show up, having become estranged from the rest because of a story which would require a full-length book. But she missed a train and had no choice but to stay with us as extra guest, & I was witness to the past being healed: not just witness but a participant too. Siblings can be bitter rivals but they would prefer to be loving sisters. And a mother wants to live too, not just as a mother-figure but in her own right . . .
O, if I could write a novel, then all would be explained.
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Vincent,
With your brief addition here in the comments section, I now have a sense of the profound nature of the experience, the miracle that you were witness to, and now I now feel a witness to as well through you. Thank you for sharing a bit more, for bringing us into the miracle with you, for I think we all can relate to what is required to reach a point of peace and healing in some family situations. I am grateful as I sit with a smile and a genuine sense of contentment and joy in having shared in it from far away. Thank you.
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