This week we’ve had a small invasion of ladybirds in the garden. Not hordes, but more than I’ve seen in a good many years and Thursday I had to shut all the windows as they were crawling up the windows, the kitchen wall, and the back door. Weird. Only one landed on me as I was hanging out washing and I was able to encourage it to fly off. They’re pretty enough, and harmless (I think) though it’s slightly creepy to see them crawling up the windows.

One time, whilst staying at a Tai Chi retreat in the country, they had an infestation of them on the wooden window ledges on the inside. Some of us had to double up in the bedrooms as people understandably didn’t want to sleep in a room with hordes of them crawling and flying around.

The only other time I’ve seen them en masse was at a beach campsite in Germany when I was very young. We were staying in a caravan in the grounds of a small farm, practically on the beach, and they were huddled in their hundreds in the wooden wind breaks. That was a fun holiday; I’d found a bow and some arrows hidden in a hedge and had many happy hours trying to fire it, Mum had tried (unsuccessfully) to milk a cow which we all found hilarious at the time, Dad was actually with us instead of on duty (army), and our grandparents were on their way, from Wales, to stay with us too. There was an old windmill a little way down the coast and they took in freshly caught shrimps/prawns, cooked them, then sold them in newspaper, still hot. Many a happy time was spent eating steaming hot prawns from paper, whilst sitting in the caravan. We had milk that was still warm from the cow on our cornflakes though none of us kids were quite so keen on that.

For 2 weeks we barely left the farm site though I guess my Father must have popped out now and again for groceries. We walked for what seemed like miles on the beach with our grandparents, built numerous sandcastles with moats, and played for hours in rock pools catching little crabs and shrimps in our buckets to examine before releasing them back into the pools. One day trip stands out because we’d gone to a very pretty harbour with wooden jetty’s. The water was so clear, and shallow, and we lay on the jetty watching star fish slowly make their way from one wooden jetty post to another. I remember it being very warm and sunny, and a gentle breeze made little waves that caused the boats to lap against the jetty. I don’t have many memories from my childhood, but this holiday really has stayed with me and the ladybirds in the garden brought it all back. Happy times indeed.