It makes you want to spit

Not really - that wouldn't be nice.

I'm back at work today. Festivities officially over. Let the fun stop.

The best I could do for my Blip today was this cuckoo-spit. We have a lot of lavender in our front garden - and quite a bit of this stuff. Evidently lavender is prone to it.

It is said that the name comes from the spit - obviously - and the fact that its arrival seems to coincide with the first call of the cuckoo in spring. There was an old folk superstition about spitting whenever a cuckoo is heard, to avoid bad luck. Witches' brew just wouldn't be the same without a dollop (as in Macbeth) and in northern European countries, they actually call it 'witches' spit' (but not in English!)

The cuckoo-spit is produced by the nymph of the froghopper, and its function is to protect the little insect from drying up, as the young are not very well developed, and have only a very thin skin, no wings and only rudimentary legs.

There you are - everything you never wanted to know about cuckoo-spit.