Here in the UK the clocks moved forward an hour, the spring bulbs have emerged and the sounds of life reawakening are all around me. It’s been a long weekend, for some they have celebrated various moments in their religious calendars and for others it has been a nice break from the hustle and bustle of modern life.
I have mentioned my ‘menagerie’ of animals and this weekend has be delightful, the garden is cat proofed, there are toys for the dog and the tortoise has a good run of grass and stone slabs to walk about on. Even our resident wild hive has been active, with workers and drones buzzing around the entrance. This will be the sixth year the hive will be busy in the eaves of the roof. They moved in during the pandemic and there was nothing we could do as the UK was locked down. They don’t bother us and we just let them get on with it. Bees seem to like us. We have had all sorts of wild bees in the garden or in the roof. I didn’t realise that they sing or ‘pipe’ until I could hear some of them through the walls!
It is these observations that I use in my writing, I am naturally curious and I like to study the patterns of things, be it pictures of the cosmos to swirls in the sand. So the piping of bees at some point may pop up in one of my novels or short stories. How do I know this may happen? We inherited the dog, a brown cockerpoo, from my husband’s parents. I’m ok about dogs, but having been allergic to them for most of my life, I have tended to stay away from them, a quick pat on the head and move on. About five years ago I noticed that the allergy was subsiding, and now we own a dog, who is on a bed next to my feet as I write this. He influenced the appearance of a dog at the start of book two of my psychological thriller series, another cockerpoo, only this time a blonde girl called Minty. It was through observing his behaviour I was able to capture the essence of taking a dog for a walk and the antics they can get up to.
I imagine Minty looks like this.
So who knows if the rest of the menagerie will turn up in some shape or form in the future!
