I went to Maple Ridge this past weekend and stayed with Freddie and Twig, and it was marvellous.  My brother Freddie is absolutely hilarious.  As a bonus, their pool is kept at 90 degrees so it’s a pleasure to hang out in it, gently floating or breast-stroking around.

My friend Beverly came out for the day on Sunday and after a delicious lunch at my niece’s Julie’s, we came home to two hours in the pool.  The weather was divine as well, so all in all it was a great visit.

The goal of the trip, however, was to transport Margaret’s cat, Cole, to Kelowna.  I’d promised her I’d do that as she said her nerves wouldn’t take the yowling for the entire trip.  I asked if she could make it to Maple Ridge, and she could, so we met there and I put Cole and his cage on my back seat.

I was steeling myself for the next four hours, but I only heard a few feeble mews about half an hour after driving off.  After a couple of hours of silence I’d convinced myself Cole had died of the heat or a heart attack, and so I pulled over to check.  There he was, all calm, just staring back at me.

He did the feeble mewing about three different times on the trip, and each time I just said here puss puss puss puss here puss puss puss, and he stopped.  I also played ABBA’s greatest hits, so when I arrived I said to Margaret I think he just likes ABBA or something.

However before even being able to leave for Maple Ridge, I had to drive up Glenmore Road past the dump to pick up a mated queen bee.  Lorraine said it’s likely the safest and surest way to get that second hive going, so I said okay, and contacted the seller.

He said you have to come on Saturday, to which I replied but I have to drive to Maple Ridge on Saturday.  He, being the single-minded type, said if you don’t come Saturday by the time you get here the queen will be dead.  Dramatic people always get what they want, as on Saturday morning I drove there and got the damn queen.

She came in a little plastic cage surrounded by two or three worker bees who would tend to her while she was in there.  There was a tube attached and this was plugged with marshmallow.  I took the cage and bees home, fashioned a paper clip into a hanger, and put the queen into my second hive.

This morning when I went out to check, sure enough the marshmallow was eaten and the bees were gone, so I have a queen in that hive. Surely this is going to work.  But you know how gardening and bee keeping can go around here.

So now Margaret lives in Kelowna, just a nine minute drive from here, and I’m finding this very appealing.  I like to imagine the things we can do, as she plans to make more videos of me and the bees, and hopefully with both our brains involved we might find a way to conquer WordPress and get videos added to this blog.

In the meantime I’ve picked the last of my apricots and red currants and plan to spend a day making jam.  I thank God for air conditioning as it’s 35 degrees C right now.