Anyone for Ants?

A busy time. I’ve been very lucky and had lots of visitors in the past couple of months who have kept me supplied with many tasty goodies from Tetley tea bags to Cadbury’s mini eggs and most importantly CHEESE! I’m currently rationing out my last morsel of cheddar which I will just have to dream about until the end of July. My first visitors Tracy and Ian brought out pencils and rubbers from the lovely kiddy winks at Craneswater junior for the equally lovely little darlings at Kassa Kunda lower basic school. On the way we bought a mountain of exercise books from the local stationary shop and left the shopkeeper a very happy man. We then had the pleasure of handing out all the goodies to each class. We did an excellent impression of Father Christmas and his little helpers.

Happy faces

Next was Lisa and her three playmates all wonderful positive girlies who had a great time soaking up the culture and enjoying the sun, sand and surf. To top it all they had numerous marriage proposals from young (and not so young) gentlemen who obviously saw signs of love, romance and companionship or am I getting confused with UK visas and pound signs somewhere along the line.

Lisa on the beach with two of her mortal enemies.

A birthday beach beakfast

All visitors gone and it was back down to work, teaching, testing and marking. I do believe that all this paperwork which is often completed by candlelight is playing havoc with my eyes. Enter the ants.

My first unfortunate encounter was over breakfast. I have taken to having a squeeze of local honey on my porridge every morning. Now this honey comes in used tomato sauce bottles, which is admirable, I’m all for recycling. Every morning as I flipped the lid and squeezed, little dried flakes of honey sprinkled on my cereal. It wasn’t until day five when I happened to be wearing my specs I realised the honey flakes were moving. On closer inspection I realised that they were minute ants. Oh well, I suppose it is extra protein. Now I take care to inspect before squeezing. No, I didn’t throw the honey out, I’m a tight northerner, remember.

Ant incident number two involved food again. While preparing to make toast in my frying pan on the burner I noticed lots of dried brown onions which must have been left from the Spanish omelette the night before. Specs on revealed a herd of fried ants, the larger cousins of the honey ants. They went to a fried and watery grave. This time they were not consumed.

Incident number three involved food of another type. Having just showered I went to put on my clothes which I’d dumped on the floor outside the bathroom door. Groping around in the dark again I managed to get dressed without getting anything inside out. Within seconds the itching started. Ants in my pants! They were obviously mounting a revenge attack for their cousins the honey and fried ants and decided to sink their pincers into my nether regions. Needless to say I jumped back in the shower over a distance that would put Jonathan Edward’s triple jump record to shame.

June’s monthly tip – When you get to a certain age, wear specs when preparing food and dressing.

A lovely pic even though I say so myself.