A Warning About The Transitory Nature Of Bees

Today we took the short drive back to Boxley for a quiet drink at The Kings Arms to sit in its gloriously peaceful garden with a pint for a bit of a debrief as my brother has just been notified that he's at risk of redundancy. To be honest he's a bit fatalistic about it, he wouldn't be entirely unhappy if he is made redundant as he's been in this position several times before and has quite frankly had enough of it and of his commute up to London (he's being doing it for over 30 years) but it's still an unsettling time and does bring up many mixed emotions - he likes his job (most of the time) but hates the daily weekday grind of train travel and he would miss the friends he's made at work. I was in almost exactly the same position 4 years ago and it's never an easy situation to navigate. All I can do is listen and offer my best as some kind of counsel having been down that particularly bumpy road myself.

Today's image is another in my sign based series - although you could argue it's signwriting and not a sign - as it's actually the rear doors of the van we parked behind before we strolled across to The Kings Arms for our pints. There was just something about the cartoonish depiction of one of our pollinating friends against the stark white paintwork with its cautionary warning that just appealed to me!
The extra is a bit of experiment (and a companion piece to my previous blip of 11/06/2024) that I don't think quite works but I thought I'd include it nonetheless because it does tell a story. The flags are at the village's war memorial to commemorate all the service personnel from around the world - including those from United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa and the Caribbean - who took part in Operation Overlord which heralded the D-Day landings of 6th June 1944 but as I didn't want a straight on portrayal I thought I would attempt an alternative viewpoint and tried to fit a snapshot of them and the row of cottages beyond through the decoratively carved lychgate of the village's church.