This morning in our bathroom I found a bee on the mat. The bee was alive although a little docile almost taking time for a wash. I grabbed a glass that had some water in and emptied it, gave it a quick wipe and then grab a piece of card. I scooped the bee up and decided it would be good to show LCJ before letting it go. Once I picked it up I noticed that it was a little unusual with a completely black body with orange thighs and a very slight orange tip of the abdomen. My first thought was a red tailed bumblebee but now that I have looked at a few pictures I am not so sure. I took a few shots but due to the thickness of the glass plus the amount of movement of the bee I only got some very rough one. I have included two here:
After research I suspect it might be a Red Shanked Carder Bumblebee (Bombus ruderarius) which is fairly scarce in the UK instead of the more common Red Tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius). They seem to be distinguished by the Red Shanked one having red hairs on the hind legs where the red tailed one has black legs.
Listening to some tune this evening from the old musics library, where old being the operative word here as some of these are from last century 
yes thats right back from the 19xx. To be honest I do enjoy dipping back into my past and I am glad to say even the really bad tunes don’t make me cringe too much 
So this evening I have been dipping into the old soul, house and hip hop from the 80s and 90s. More 80s if I check
We have had these plus lots more:
- Planet Rock – Africa Bambaata
- I’ll house you – jungle brothers
- Salsa House / You used to hold- Richie Rich and Ralphi Rosario
- Jazzy Sensation – AB again
- Good Life – Inner City
- Fairplay – Soul II Soul
- Big Fun – Inner City
- Jam Master Jay – Run DMC
- It takes two – Rob Base & EZ Rock
And it continues beats listening to some of the really bad acts on X Factor, roll on when the twins get kicked out as this has got beyond funny..
so 2009 is here, after some fizzy stuff last night along with I Am Legend we watched the fireworks for London on the box and then retired after numerous text messages plus a couple of phone calls. Must admit I was surprised by I Am Legend it was a different delivery to what I had expected, but a very good film.
So on NYD we decided that it was worth a trip to Sweden to pickup some essential items for the house, OK it wasn’t really Sweden it was Little Sweden or Ikea to most people. So off we went up the A40 then North Circ until we reached Wembley and the Ikea store. To our surprise the store car park was fairly empty and we found a Family parking space and wandered into the store to purchase the following:
- Media Box
- Wardrobe
- Childs Table & Chairs
- Magnetic Board
- Mirror
- Shoe boxes
When we arrived we remembered that we were going to buy a new mattress as well for our bedroom, but forgot to check the size, damn that’s not good. So will have to order online instead.
Wandered around and by the time we had got to the cafe we had a trolley full and none of it was on the list, please note this was before we had been down to the market place where we normally get sidetracked
So coffee, tea and muffins etc were consumed and Cameron had a good run around, plus had fun organising the stools in the children’s area. Still it was relatively empty which was good so down a floor to the market place to get those essentials or not
Twenty minutes later we are in the warehouse looking for the children’s table and chair, after having checked with staff who pointed us in the right direction all good loaded it is time to head to the checkouts. God I cannot believe it no queues
Several pounds later we are back in the car park with a grumpy boy and heading home with a few of the following things:
- Children’s table and chairs
- Veggie peeler
- Onion slicer
- Chef Pan
- Shoe boxes
- Media Storage box
- Plate (to replace one broken by cameron)
- Bag clips
- Mat
- Cot Duvet
- Picture frame
- Bedlinen
So a word of warning, Ikea is dangerous, very dangerous to your wallet. Or am I a sucker for all things swedish?
