Superstition in the spring

My mother phoned me up this morning, asking me if I could go and get her some live yogurt and a few other things. She has just finished a course of antibiotics, and they tend to empty the gut of essential bacteria. I was meant to be going across anyway to take her a Dysentia that the Tynemaiden had promised her, but when I went to dig it out from the mass of other plants in which it had self-seeded, I felt an ominous crack and realised I had snapped it off halfway down its root-system. So I stuck it in some compost in a pot anyway, zipped around the supermarket, and drove over to her cottage. She liked the Dysentia, and I do really hope that it takes; I have this horror that if I have given her a plant that dies she too will take a turn for the worse.

Why do I have this superstitious streak in me? I am an engineer, I've looked after engine rooms in ships, and computers; I've rebuilt derelict cars, and still I have the same sort of mentality that led South Sea Islanders to lay out symbols on the ground to try and attract planes to land. To illustrate just how bizarre my obsessions can be; I have been reading my diaries of a cycle trip around Scandinavia and the horrendous weather I encountered as I rode through Holland, Germany and Denmark. The weather now, outside, has changed to violent gusts of wind and rain which echo that trip. Have I created that local weather just by reading about myself 21 years ago? Do I create the world around me just from willpower and whim? Should I section myself for the good of humanity before I cause a hurricane to visit our shores?

Anyway, she insisted on paying me for the shopping, and although I had no need of the money I saw that it meant a lot to her, and so I drove her along to the post office in the next village, and then we returned home by the back lanes. As I turned off the High Street she said 'This is going to be a much longer... Oh, what lovely flowers!' And so we wandered back through lanes where the wild parsley was brushing both sides of the car, and the Campions mixed their pink with the Bluebells' blue and the ever-present Hawthorn Blossom's white. England in flower is a sight to remember for ever.

She was tired by the trip to and from the post office, so I left her to take it easy, and drove over to Blandford to see if I could get my old collapsible fishing rod mended. It's a foolish thing to do because I could buy one for next to nothing on ebay, but it kept me alive all around the Lapland and Norwegian fjord areas, and I feel I owe it something. There's my superstition coming out again. I believe that some of the things I own have a spirit, and it is my duty to care for them in return for the help they gave me in the past. If I stop doing this, I will no longer be entitled to the good luck I seem to have enjoyed so far.

I walked along the street in Blandford towards the sports shop, and suddenly saw three or four schoolgirls start screaming and waving their hands around their heads. As I reached them and then passed them, I looked across the road to see what was going on, and saw a swarm of bees. I started to open my mouth in astonishment, and felt the temporary crown drop off the upper left canine I had broken on a piece of filo pastry last week. Quick as a flash I got my tongue to it, and then a finger, and pressed it back on. Most other people would simple let their jaw drop in amazement, but not me, I have to go that little bit further and make a spectacle of myself.

The sports shop turned out to be a total waste of time, the only person who could have helped me was off for the day, fishing. So I went back along the street to the car park. This time, the bees had clustered all along the bottom of a shop window, and a man in olive overalls was kneeling in front of the window, feeling the swarm with his bare hands. I stared, fascinated, and then decided if it was safe for him, it should be safe for me as well. The shop manager was also out there, in his shirtsleeves, with a small cardboard box.

The man in the olive drab overalls was a passing bee-keeper, and he was trying to identify the queen bee. As we watched, he lifted out a hand covered with bees and looked at them, muttering 'no, she's not in this lot.' In answer to my questions, he told me that the bees would not sting when they were swarming like this, they would only get aggressive after a few days in a hedge with no sight of a suitable hive space. He found the queen, and persuaded his companion to empty out his pack of cigarettes and make a couple of air holes in it. Carefully, he lifted the queen away from the window glass and, after a few false attempts, got her into the empty cigarette pack.

I wish I could have stayed to watch the whole process, but I only had a short time on the car ticket, and they had got me once before in this town, £60 for parking overnight in the car park without a valid ticket on display. There are some things more painful than bee-stings, and being stung by the local council is one of them.

I hope the bee-keeper got the swarm away safely into the box. There have been news reports lately that the bees have been acting strangely this spring, not swarming as expected. If the bees stop visiting the flowers, will the flowers stop growing? If the flowers stop growing, will the bees stop visiting England? What would England look like if it was just a green and sceptred isle, without the many-coloured spots and patches? Should I start laying out brightly-coloured patches on the platform to attract the giant silver bees I see so far above me to come down and bless the Tynemaiden's flowers?