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| ... Or, What Katy Did |
Behold, Dear Reader, the strange visitor to our bedroom the other morning. We do seem to get a fair bit of wildlife inside the casa (of the six- and eight-legged variety, mind), but it's the first time a Bush Cricket or Common Garden Katydid (Caedicia simplex) has lobbed in without a by your leave. It may have been attracted by the marquetry foliage on the bedhead, but it's still a feat to have made it up a couple of floors. Of course, it was a long way down again but I expect they're hardy beasts and no harm was done by my deft swipe with a jar and swift dispatch out the window*.
Uninvited, unwelcome and, I should say, un-housetrained as there was a calling card which also needed dispatching, but I wasn't totally heartless when Mr. P declared upon telephonic consultation that I should just kill it!
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| Just bad manners, thank you very much |
And speaking of more unwanted bugs about the bedroom, we were also subject to dose of Covid. Today I tested negative at last and took my pale and uninteresting self off to ballet to celebrate. A couple of fellow dancers did caution against overdoing it, lest long-Covid might visit as well, but I'm a complete bunhead these days and cancelled six classes while I was incommoded. I've some catching up to do!
* Unless, like the eponymous Katy in
What Katy Did, the fall did grave injury to it and it is destined to lie in bed half-paralysed and sulky at the injustice of it all for the rest of its little life. Mind you, I did rather adore this book as a child, and Katy's miraculous recovery of body and spirit is what I should call more of an Improving Read for young girlish minds than the dreary suggestions of
Mr. MonadGPT, The Book of Common Prayer and
The Art of Dying Well.
Image credits: Flying With Hands
I am sorry to hear that you had covid, and am glad that you are over it, but I agree with your friends who are telling you not to overdo it. Sometimes we are so anxious to get back to things that we skip the rest we really need. About the insect, Britannica via the internet states that "As a group, katydids are poor flyers. Many species do not fly but only flutter their wings during leaps." So yours could probably flutter enough to break its fall, and its slight weight would probably allow it to drop uninjured anyway. The whimsicality of the pun "Katy did" would be enough to prevent me from investigating further, especially since the name Katy would probably preclude most boys from approaching such literature.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Dear Jim, thank you for your consideration, it's too kind of you! I'm unsurprised that the other Katy did didn't feature on your reading radar, but I was surprised to read just now those authorial details which typically don't register with young readers at the time, namely the 1872 book and its author, pennamed Susan Coolidge, are set in Cleveland!
DeleteYes, yes, a glass, a postcard, and hey presto... spider, bug, wasp, whatever can be complimented out the window. Not fair, especially in winter. Still a good feeling, like Pontius Pilate, to wash my hands in innocence.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to house flies, I certainly take the blame.
• May you be spared Long Covid, Signora Pipistrello.
The peace of the night!
Thank you, dear Sean!
DeleteI used to think killing animals for food or sport was betondcruel. I still would not eat a cow or sheep, unless it was a dire emergency.
ReplyDeleteBut now I have limited my protective views to creatures with four limbs. If a creature has lots of legs (eg scorpion) or no legs (eg a snake), I don't want it near me.
Dear Hels, I rather think that plenty of creepy crawlies in this wide brown land of ours are best dispatched with a slipper when running away isn't the option!
DeleteYour visitor is a lovely shade of green. He'd blend right in to a lush garden better than on a bedframe. ;)
ReplyDeleteBe well,
B
Dear Bea, this beauty did rather stick out in the domestic sphere. Ordinarily, unless it was making a racket in the shrubbery, it wouldn't even be noticed!
DeleteWe have a lot of those large green Crickets in France; many have long pointed spikes at the back end. We just leave them, they do no harm. I'm afraid that a lot of them get 'mowed'.
ReplyDeleteYour house in France must positively hum in the summertime with the crickets, dear Cro.
DeleteWe do have much smaller versions in our garden in the Summer. I find them so pretty .... such a beautiful shade of green and those beautiful, delicate wings. I cope with most creepy crawlies but I'm not keen on spiders .... i know it's an illogical fear ..... it's that scuttling across the lounge floor that I don't like and, to have the ones you have, I don't know how I would cope but I guess you are used to them. XXXX
ReplyDeleteDear Jackie, its wings were threaded through with leaf-like veins, too. Very pretty! Unlike the gigantic cockroach that I discovered in floating in my bedside waterglass the other morning!! Ughh ... not for the faint-hearted. xx
DeleteDear Pip, to hear that you had Covid is bad news, though by now I understand you have recovered - I'm glad about that!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes: don't overdo activities now (though, honestly, my motto is: "My body knows quite well what it can do or shouldn't" - and Celebration&Joy are a good couple of doctors, I would say.
As to bugs I have a strict rule: "Outside - yes, inside: no!" As I tell them, "lovingly" as Dame Edna would say - and I do it your way: take a glass and a postcard, catch them and throw them out - good riddance, or "Knut!" as the Swedish cry when they throw their Christmas trees out of the window (and husband did that once in Berlin, from the balcony to the meadow under it - a tale the triplets can't hear often enough)
Bugs - they may be as beautiful as that green one - make me shiver - especially on a headboard of a bed. "One never knows with bugs", as Pu bear might have said.
I wish you a beautiful and healthy and bug-free year, dear Pip! XXX
One never knows, indeed, dear Britta! And I am heeding your advice and have restricted myself to one dance class ... per day, hahah :) ... The triplets are at such a great age, no? "Tell us the Knut story again, dearest Grandmama!" xx
DeleteGood to hear you are dancing again!
DeleteThe triplets call me "Nana".
Nana! I was stabbing in the dark there :)
DeleteHOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY?
ReplyDeleteI HAVE YET TO GET IT COVID THAT IS BUT AM CETAIN IT's JUST A MATTER OF TIME!
CAN YOU RECITE IN BALLET WORDS A ROUTINE YOU DID IN CLASS?
LETS SEE IF I CAN HO CAPITO AND COPY YOU!
THAT WOULD BE GREAT FUN!
XXX
I'm in tip top shape again, thank you dearest Contessa. It would be fun indeed to get you dancing in your casa! I'll get onto writing out a little centre adage for you try, we did a nice one today :) xx (Just about to hop a plane to Paris so it'll have to wait a couple of days!)
DeleteMy first reaction is 'oh, good luck cricket! So I will keep that.
ReplyDeleteDearest Spo, I will trust he landed safely into some shrubbery :)
DeleteWhat Katy Did, what she did next and so on were among my favourite childhood books!
ReplyDeleteMe, too, dear Rosemary!
Delete