08:00 Lois and I tumble out of bed - we usually talk on zoom at 8:30 am with our daughter Sarah, who lives in Perth, Australia, with Francis and their 7-year-old twins Lily and Jess. It's very early for us - we have to at least get dressed and have breakfast before the call, but any later and it interferes with the twins getting their tea and going to bed: 8:30 am here is 4:30 pm in Perth - yikes, no fair !!!
flashback to Christmas Day - Sarah's family having their
Christmas turkey dinner in the scorching heat in Australia - what madness!!!
As it happens Sarah texts us this morning - it turns out that the family are going to be "out and about" today until the twins' bedtime, so she wants to postpone the zoom call to Wednesday. And relax..... haha.
09:00 I peep into the utility room at the back of the house, and I see all the fresh fruit and vegetables that Lois has been soaking overnight, now neatly laid out to dry. They came yesterday morning in a delivery from Budgens, the convenience store in the village, and we take all sorts of precautions to avoid catching any viruses from them. You know it makes sense!!!
a fruit and vegetable delivery that we have washed and dried,
just to be on the safe side !!!
Flashback to 2002: "Magyar" Mike (right) in happier times: in front of our hotel in
Eger, Hungary, seen here with "Magyar" Mary (centre) and Lois (left)
me in the basement of Eger Castle, Hungary with a Turkish bigwig (model only, not a real one)
Later we get further confirmation of the general need for double doses of vaccine, this time from Fauci via Borowitz in the New York Times, so it must be right!
10:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's 2 worship services today on zoom. I settle down on the couch and read a bit more of Lois's main Christmas present to me, a book about GCHQ, "Behind the Enigma" by John Ferris.
flashback to Christmas Day: I open my main present from Lois
At the moment I'm studying the section on World War I. And I see that one of the reasons that Britain's trade blockade of Germany was so successful was that, apart from controlling the seas with her Navy, it was Britain, or at least British companies, that owned and operated most of the world's transoceanic cables: as a result Britain could essentially read most of the world's mail, right from the start of the war in 1914. And from 1915 Britain could read all the world's sea-mail as well. She was thus able to prevent Germany from importing or exporting any goods by sea, leading to shortages of food and raw materials in enemy-held territory.
cable map of the world (1901)
Comint (communications intercept) allowed Britain to know when firms were seeking to break the blockade. Few ship-owners dared challenge Britain's position, and the result was that their ships called in voluntarily at British checkpoints, and policing by Britain's naval vessels became mostly unnecessary.
Fascinating stuff !!!
16:00 We settle down on the couch for a cup of Extra Strong Earl Grey tea and half a Chelsea bun each - yum yum!
we settle down on the couch with a cup of tea and half a Chelsea bun each
I look at my smartphone. I see that two local pubs are in trouble: the Plough and the Hewlett Arms, both less than half a mile away from us. They are probably going to have to close for an indefinite period due to the lockdown, and appeals are being made to donate money.
Oh dear - this is a sad day!!!
flashback to June 2014: "The Plough" pub in happier times -
we take our twin grandchildren Lily and Jess for a picnic in the pub garden
flashback to September 2018: we visit The Plough with Lois's cousin Sylvia
from Melbourne, Australia, and Sylvia's partner, Rod
Poor Plough!!!!!
20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV, the second programme in David Attenborough's new series "The Perfect Planet".
We learn about tiny fig wasps, only 2mm long, A female fig wasp has just one day when the fig allows her to burrow into the undeveloped fruit. It's such a tight squeeze that her wings are ripped off, but no matter - she's not going to use them again. Poor female fig-wasp!!!
Inside the fig she lays hundreds of eggs. and then dies, inside the unripe fig, alongside her eggs. Sunlight then gradually ripens the figs and helps the young wasps inside to develop. After 5 weeks the eggs start to hatch: the first to emerge are the golden, wingless males. The males are already keen to start mating, so they just can't wait: they somehow manage to mate with their unhatched sisters, who are still inside their eggs of course. To do this they use their "telescopic penises" which are twice their body length, i.e. 4 mm.
The young new-born male wasps start mating with their sisters, even before
the sisters have hatched out, using their telescopic penises, twice their body length.
It's sheer madness !!!
The young females now begin to hatch, while the males burrow their way out of the fig, and then sacrifice themselves - they let themselves get eaten by marauding ants. While the ants are busy eating the males, the female wasps make their escape and fly away.
Not much of a life is it haha! I think I'd rather be me, to put it mildly!!!
What a crazy planet we live on!!!!
Garter snakes - they're a strange lot too. They're one of Canada's most northerly reptiles. In spring, after 6 months of hibernation, it's again the males who are the first to emerge. And again, the first thought on their minds is to find some females. They first have to wait a few hours, though, to get warmed up by the sun, so they can start to move quickly again.
Altogether 20,000 of these snakes emerge every spring, the largest emergence of reptiles anywhere on earth.
every spring 20,000 garter snakes emerge from hibernation
Finally a few females appear. They're much bigger than the males so it takes them even longer to warm up. But the males start to swarm all over each female, wrapping themselves around her, outnumbering her 100 to 1, and this helps to warm her up more quickly.
as many as 100 little males wrap themselves around each large female, helping to warm her up
To help her choose which males to mate with, she then makes a daring ascent of a nearby cliff. All the males go with her, but all but the strongest ones give up and fall off before she gets to the top. She then rewards the handful of males that make it to the top by mating with each of them.
It's sheer madness isn't it! Again, I think I'd rather be me than a garter snake. Apart from everything else, I'm not the world's greatest rock-climber, to put it mildly haha!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment