• Wasp’s Nest

I’ve been away for a few days and have come back to find squatters.  To be fair, they’re squatting outside the house, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a wasps’ nest and I was initially quite anxious.  It is located in a corner under the guttering above the first floor.  I asked around as to how to deal with it.  One helpful friend suggested that I climb up a ladder, with a plastic bag to put over it and some shears to slice it off, followed by tying the bag up and descending.  I thought better of that.  After a while observing it, I could see that the wasps were not swarming loosely around the nest but making a bee-line (…) for it from quite some distance away and leaving in a similarly focused manner. There was no immediate danger, although I closed the nearby windows.

A wasps’ nest is a thing of great beauty, like a fine swaddle, its layers overlapping exquisitely.  It lasted over a month, but I came back after another trip away to find it destroyed and abandoned, its interior ‘comb’ exposed to the elements.