I found this little critter on a dandelion in our lawn a few days ago. At first I thought it was a hoverfly or perhaps some kind of wasp, but I think it's actually a nomad bee. These are parasitic bees that lay their eggs in the nests of other bees. Not a very nice idea, but hey, "nature red in tooth and claw," right?
Here it is from another angle. By the way, did you know that a fluffy head of dandelion seeds is called a "clock"? I've never heard that term but came across it when I was trying to figure out the bug. Maybe it's a British thing.
Dave and I are off work today so we can attend our biometric appointment for citizenship. I have no idea what to expect. I think we're basically just showing up, getting our fingerprints taken and handing over paperwork (which I've already submitted electronically). There won't be any decision today but it's the final step before we wait to hear back and then attend a swearing-in ceremony, which is when everything becomes official. That will be the big day, but Dave and I decided to take today off anyway. The appointment is in the City right in the middle of the day, so there was no point trying to work a few hours on either end.
Yesterday, while walking the dog (who recovered perfectly well from her morning unsteadiness, perhaps just a problem with old muscles and joints), I was alarmed to see this:
That's a terrible video, because I took it while holding the dog's leash and walking, but that is a lot of dark smoke pouring into the sky. My blood ran cold when I saw it because it immediately brought to mind 9/11. Yesterday was the same type of cool, spectacularly clear morning as on 9/11, and I suppose anyone who was in New York that day (like me) can never forget the plume of smoke in the otherwise crystal-blue sky. I came inside to check the news and BBC London had nothing on its web site (yet), so I figured it couldn't be anything too disastrous. I soon found a tweet from the London Fire Brigade attributing it to an electrical substation fire in Maida Vale.
As you can see here, it eventually did make the news -- it was quite a visible event and the smoke was incredible. Fortunately I was upwind of it. Later that morning we were at school as usual about half a mile away and our power and air quality were unaffected (as far as I could tell).
Here's an unusual sticker I found on my walk to work. Since that's a stadium in the lower shot I knew it had to be about football, but I don't read German so I hadn't a clue what it said. According to Google, it translates to, "Nowhere will you find more scum and depravity gathered than here." That's Hamburg's Volksparkstadion, so clearly someone is not a Hamburg fan, but I have no idea who produced the sticker. The Star Wars theme gave me a chuckle, though.
The tradition with a dandelion clock is to blow off the seed heads and the number of puffs it takes to get them all gone will tell you the time - a children's/folklore/country thing that's been around forever. -Try it!
ReplyDeleteseconded! as a child blowing the seeds off the dandelion 'clock' was a thing children just did - you wouldn't pass a dandelion without blowing its clock! Also holding a buttercup under your chin to see if it reflected yellow, if so it proved you liked butter!
DeleteI have never heard this about the dandelion and telling time! (Or the buttercup thing!) I'll have to try the dandelion. :)
DeleteHow many swear words do you need to know for the swearing in ceremony? Or maybe the officials swear at you! If you require assistance with your knowledge of British swear words then I am here to help. You only need to ****ing ask you *****!
ReplyDelete"Another bloody Yank wanting citizenship!"
DeleteDandelion clocks are known for accuracy. See Sue's comment. You're sounding excited about the citizenship change. Will there be parties? We had them for our US citizenship. His workplace, my workplace, neighbors, everyone celebrated to welcome us.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why they're accurate? Maybe the seeds loosen when the weather is warmest, in the afternoon?
DeleteStrictly a joke. Kids blew them to get the time they wanted.
DeleteFrom spotting a nomad bee and learning "clock," to your citizenship appointment and the unsettling Maida Vale fire, it sounds like a week full of memorable moments—glad your dog is okay and all ended well.
ReplyDeleteA nomad bee was new to me.
DeleteI never knew there was such a thing as a nomad bee. Our daily news at 6pm on TV has at least one fire and often more with businesses, homes and even cars going up in smoke. It's become such a common thing I ignore it if it isn't near where any of my kids live.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't pay such attention to most fires, but this one was SO visible.
Delete“Biometric appointment ? Sounds like it could be painful!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds a lot scarier than it is!
DeleteMarty's right. In my mind they are going to take all your measurements, especially of your head and face. It will be like one of those sci-fi movies where the little beeping noises are made as they scan you and THEN they will chip you.
ReplyDeletePlain old paper or plastic ID's are no longer adequate.
I bet that fire was scary as hell.
Glad that Olga's feeling more like herself.
I wish they'd chip me. It sounds incredibly convenient.
DeleteGood luck on your biometric meeting today. Speaking of biometrics, it reminds me of back in the mid 2000s when I used to fly to the UK frequently. I was allowed to apply for their IRIS program. It was an early intro to the kind of facial identification used today when entering/leaving the country. Instead of the face, it used your eyes--a precursor to today's e-gates. You would register your "eyes" (an office in LHR) when you met the requirements. They had a separate station at LHR where you bypassed the usual passport control for a faster pass through immigration--didn't even show your passport--and entered into a glassed area (gate closed behind you and the exit door wouldn't open until you looked into a machine that "read" your irises. My only problem was that being short, the angle of the camera strangely seemed to have a hard time adjusting to my height so it usually took a couple of tries to work.
ReplyDeleteJust looked at Wikipedia - IRIS Recognition Immigration System. Ended it in 2013.
Yes! I remember the IRIS program, and seeing people use it at the airport. I was never enrolled myself and then it went away. We've moved on to facial recognition nowadays, I suppose.
DeleteAre you sure biometrics isn't some cloning pre-test???
ReplyDeleteInvasion of the Body Snatchers was real!!!!! 😁
I can't imagine why the government might want to clone me, of all people!
DeleteThat sticker! Who has the time for such things?!? Too funny. Seeing the smoke would have been frightening. I wonder the purpose of nomad bees. I just read that they don’t collect pollen. There’s apparently not much threat of a sting from them, but they do look so much like wasps, I’d probably have a panic attack. I could only quickly glance at your photos. (I thought I had gotten over that.) I had never heard the name clock for a fluffy dandelion head. I had always called it a dandelion puff. The things I learn from you!
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a wasp at first. I had never heard of a nomad bee!
DeleteA biometric meeting required for citizenship is new to me. You'll have to let us know what this involves.
ReplyDeletePlumes of smoke are always concerning. Hopefully, nobody was hurt at the substation fire.
I'm glad to hear Olga is okay and back to her perky self.
It sounds much more involved than it really is, as you no doubt saw in my subsequent post!
DeleteI love that sticker! I need one, except about hockey & the team I hate (in the moment - changes daily).
ReplyDeleteWhoever developed it should release the template so it can be adapted to various teams and rivalries. (Maybe that's already the case!)
DeleteIt's been a long while since my wife went through the U.S. version of biometrics appointment for citizenship but I'm fairly certain is took all of three or four minutes, just enough to get her fingerprints taken.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's pretty much it. The longest part was getting our entire passport scanned.
DeleteWasn't it a substation fire that closed Heathrow airport a few weeks ago? It might be a good idea for someone to start checking on those substations.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine that anyone who was in NYC on 9/11 would have a visceral reaction to seeing a lot of smoke like that.
Good luck at your biometric meeting. The citizenship process is interesting to me.
I know! Weird that we've had another one!
DeleteHope your biometric meeting went smoothly. Sounds weird and like it has nothing to do with becoming a citizen.
ReplyDeleteI know. Do they take the fingerprints of native-born citizens? I doubt it, unless they commit a crime.
DeleteI know nomad bees as cuckoo bees. I would have thought the one you saw was a hoverfly, too.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I read that "cuckoo bees" is another name for them.
DeleteThat Hamburg stadium sticker has a history in Germany. Hamburg has two major football (soccer) clubs, HSV and St. Pauli, and both have very active fanbases. St Pauli's left-wing political stance as well as anti-fascism and anti-sexism are deeply rooted in the fan scene and the club in general. They usually hold large banners on current political issues in the stadium, their club logo is "nobody is illegal", while HSV is proper and conservative and stiff upper lip.
ReplyDeleteOh, interesting! So maybe a St. Pauli fan developed that sticker!
DeleteI can relate to that fear. 9/11 is burned into my mind, but so is the smoke from a wildfire that threatened our home in 2019. Stay safe.
ReplyDeleteI suppose smoke is never good, but it's interesting how our brains flash back to a particular traumatic incident. As John says below, going to the worst-case scenario!
DeleteConsidering we have beehives, I don't think a nomad bee is something I want to see around here! There are already enough things threatening honeybee populations!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I suppose they exist partly to check the populations of honeybees, but that's not something we need now!
DeleteYou and Dave zigged when when the rest of us were still zagging and lollygagging, and now you're in the perfectly zigged place to ride out the storm as brand new citizens. Happy for you both.
ReplyDeleteWe were lucky that we made the move when we did, although Britain is plenty screwed up too. If Nigel Farage eventually winds up in charge we'll be having our own Trump moment.
DeleteThat's exciting that you're getting so close to British. I envy you. Glad that Olga is back to normal and that the smoke event wasn't catastrophic. I was across the country on 9/11 but it still had an enormous impact on me. Life changing for many of us.
ReplyDeleteEven just watching it on TV was traumatic. That's where I saw most of it, because I was in midtown and couldn't see much more than the smoke from my building.
DeleteScary you went to the worst scenario
ReplyDeleteI know -- it was weird how my brain went there right away.
DeleteI will be interested to learn what biometrics were collected. According to the police procedurals on Britbox, there is a CCTV camera every 20 feet in the cities, all connected to facial recognition software, sort of like Person of Interest back in 2011.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how connected they all are, but it's true there are cameras everywhere in London. You're pretty much always on camera.
DeleteIt's shocking how much the imprint of sounds, smells, or scenes, or even, as you said, a certain kind of sky, burrows into the brain at intense moments, and is associated with that event for years afterward or even forever. It makes it easy to understand how PTSD works.
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly. I can absolutely see how someone would be "triggered" by an apparently small thing.
DeleteWow -- that smoke IS terrible. I can see why you shot back to 9/11. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what materials burned that generated so much smoke?!
Delete