Time to take the traps down as early May and with that more risk of catching the native European hornets.
I found 24 in two of the bottles- which I think all arrived in the hotter days. learnings- put traps in the trees.
Brentford for Europe
It seems, there are up to 8 slots for the European competitions for next season. After a big away win on Thursday at the City Ground Nottingham it meant that today’s home match remained very important. Manchester United were the visitors, a big name who have most definitely lost their lustre.
An it was a big win and other results mean the Bees remain in the reckoning for that place eight slot.
Another win against a so-called big club.
Trapping
Yellow legged Hornets are making the news in UK but are a more wide spread problem in France since they arrived in 2004.
It is advised to set traps early in the year to reduce the number of females that awake from hibernation to set up new nests.
My fresh trap- one of three. This has a mixture of beer and blackcurrant juice- should be white wine too!
Checked traps today and two culprits in one of them:
I am awaiting the arrival of my nuc in June.
Last week
A trip to London to work for MP prior to Easter and the trip was extended to see someone about my hip. More of that later.
A trip to see Brentford play at the Emirates- butI could only watch the first 30 minutes because I had to go off to Harrow for my quickly arranged MRI.
No Adrian there as he was apparently too mentally tired from the Real Madrid Champions League QF win. So Ben’s turn.
A trip to the National Portrait Gallery again. Hockney. Apparently he had little time to do it- still very good.
The Orchard
The container has landed
The shipping container with the items we sent back from NZ arrived in Rotterdam about two weeks ago and turned up at the house yesterday in a big lorry. Not so much stuff, bit still, along with beds and memory boxes, the kitchen table which has been back and forth over the last 20 plus years in back in place.
Shaz and her serre
Sky time
This week the night sky is in the news as seven planets are due to align and are visible – not all with the naked eye. However some are easy to see. The above shows Venus after sunset but before proper darkness. A little later when Venus was close to the horizon Neptune and Mars were easily visible. Along with other stars. A clear night.Great.
Children do travel for Christmas
Children number one and three came to stay- with an apparent trying journey via Edinburgh, Paris and to the pick up on Friday evening at Saint Brieuc.
It was good to see them. EQ’s second visit and IQ’s fifth I think. It was a planned repeat Christmas celebration as number 1 was working for the real event.
So we had lots for food, drink and a total of three films. We walked around the local area but squeezed in a walk along the Brest- Nantes canal. Hot choc, food and the company ‘Barry’ the begging bird.
Jolie
I had to take some pictures for a nice piece of bureaucracy. We are planning to change the windows of the remaining originals. It has come to our notice that we need to do a ‘declaration’- not a ‘permis de contruire’ but it seems like permission to me. Somewhat ridiculous. I could not do the applicaton online as I could not see all that I needed to do. I sent to La Mairie’ and it seems photos are part of the requirements. Already the process is getting on my nerves.
Anyway she said the house looked ‘jolie’. Ans I suppose it does.