School pets...

I’ve never had the honour of bringing home a school pet for the holidays, until last week, when a pot of 5 caterpillars was handed over, along with a butterfly tent and a set of instructions. So far there has been one casualty. I’m not sure which one – I did name them, but they do look identical. Anyway, hopefully it’s not Eddie whose life has come to a premature end. Yesterday they started the 'changing' process and this involves attaching themselves to the ‘roof’ of the pot and then hanging there, squirming. One has successfully changed into a chrysalis. One is partially changed, the other 2 are still squirming about – and it is this stage that I find absolutely revolting. I don’t mind the ones that are now still, it’s the movement that I don’t like. Yesterday, when I came back from a trip to a cold and blustery Ironbridge, I discovered there were only 4 ‘hangers’ and one small (possible) corpse at the bottom of the pot. Clearly he/she wasn’t able to secure himself correctly and was presumably no longer able to crawl back up for another go. It’s not moving, so I assume dead. Although when I transfer the chrysalises to the butterfly tent, I will inspect it a bit more closely.

 

I am hoping that they don’t change into butterflies before Tuesday, because the feeding sounds a bit complicated – and I haven’t worked out how you feed them without them escaping. Another thing that is worrying me is getting the ‘tent’ back to school on Tuesday morning. Hopefully it won’t be windy. And hopefully I won’t cock it up by dropping it. Whatever, I am going to look a bit of a twat, and rather wish they had been entrusted to someone else’s care, someone with a car, perhaps, who doesn’t get crossed over by the lollipop lady!

   

I still have two ‘squirmers’ and I wonder if they are writhing about because the process is painful. I hope not. I hope there are no more casualties, because if I lose any more I might have to go to the butterfly farm in Stratford and find some caterpillar replacements – although it would be fun to have some of those big blue buggers emerge!

 

Shopping...

 

…and manners good and bad.

Yesterday, I witnessed a rare thing, a child who said “Excuse me,” before she spoke to the adult who she was with. Amazing! And so sad that it’s amazing because it is rare. On the bus today a child was told to “lower her voice” which was actually said louder than whatever the child had said which wasn’t loud enough for me to hear. Later, when buying a sandwich, I overheard one of the shop assistants complaining that she was tired and wished she wasn’t there. Well piss off then love, there’s lots of people who would be grateful for your job!

Still on the subject of manners, can I add that I don’t think that it is acceptable to spit in the street. It is disgusting!! The only time it would be acceptable would be when someone accidentally gets a wasp, a bee, or poison in their mouth – and even then it should be done discretely, and not with a flourish.

I’ve witnessed some appalling manners in the last couple of days. There was a particularly ignorant old bat at the Shropshire County Agricultural Show, but if the hat she was wearing was an indication of her character, then clearly she was as mad as a bucket of salty slugs, so perhaps she doesn’t count. Then there was the woman today who dropped all her credit cards and demanded “Pick those up!” to her long suffering partner. No 'please', no 'thank you'. No manners.

But, all in all, it was a successful shopping trip today. New purse purchased. Some wonderful buttons for my latest crochet project and some interesting green wools for my on-going cacti project. Also, at long last, they have the nice wool back in Poundland (3 for 2).

And an unexpected bonus, I received some valuable fashion info while I was walking down to the bus station. I had no idea that the purple velour tracksuit was back in. I couldn’t be more thrilled.