Clock is ticking

Almost a fortnight ago I posted the same view "for the record". Now the countryside has exploded in dandelion yellow, a quite spectacular annual event and a signal for the bees to get cracking on with the main honey harvest of the year for them. It won't be long before the first tractors and mowers are out for the "golf-course-turf" silage season.

Bees here are less lucky than those in the cities, planted with a range of flowers planted by the council in parks and roundabouts as well as all those wonderfully decorated balconies. Despite being predominantly grassland, our county has the fewest wild meadow flower varieties in the whole of Bavaria - there is barely a field that is left to make hay, just a few organically minded farmers. Perhaps increasing the EU subsidies for what we call "Vogelheu" Bird Hay, that gets some EU money as it allows the wild birds enough time to let the wild birds nest and raise their young.

I sadly started looking for replacement bee colonies until it was too late but perhaps it may be a "good" swarming year and in a month there will be lots on offer. I really do miss the girls.

This morning eventually got to the GPs surgery at 10:45. Had wanted to go Monday but somehow didn't feel up to it, Tuesday the cesspit inspector came at 9:00 and we chatted until 10:30 and I had only 30 minutes left to get showered and over to the surgery - they don't open Tuesday afternoon and are closed Wednesday.

Didn't get to see the waiting room again and shown directly into one of the doctor's offices, the same one (of three) that took my blood last Friday. Things looking OK but she again jabbed another two vials of vitamin B6 and 12 into my posterior muscle and again it hurt like crazy. She wants this to be a weekly event for a month - masochist.

Weather much too good to do anything wonderful so made a dish of houmous for lunch and while enjoying it at lunchtime in the shade of the terrace with a cool "Radler" (50/50 beer & lemonade) I listened to the radio and got to hear Nutbush City Limits.

I think an old friend Annie in East Anglia who I posted a birthday wish today on Facebook (she isn't on Facebook and doesn't see get to see it) with a youtube video of her 1974 favourite song - Hollies. Air that I breathe.

Perhaps Annie got to open my card at lunchtime at her holiday flat on the Suffolk coast and was enjoying the weather which has thankfully also reached the UK and even Eire. She would have responded to my video with Ike & Tina Turners classic, my favourite from that time. Ironic as Annie was a great dancer so I would always sit out Nutbush but was always groping and treading on toes for the Hollies!

Happy Birthday, Annie.

In the evening did a dog walk in Ottobeuren and picked up some bits to make another batch of smoked mackerel pate but not Delia's 1970s recipe - I tried Jamie Oliver with no butter but lots of cream cheese! Also delicious.