Wretched flies ALREADY

[Jocelyn]

Has anybody else got flies creeping around? One dropped into my bath and then a couple fell splat onto the top of the Aga where they fried nicely!

I went up into the loft and the floor is covered with them, despite the fact that we hoovered and cleaned up in the Autumn.

It must be the 'warm' weather, so roll on a cold snap, which will get rid of the little so and so's, and test our 'great heating debate' resolutions!

PS I have loads of cobwebs so there are plenty of spiders around to eat the flies!

 

[Moo]

They're obviously the wrong sort of spiders.

 

[MdB]

Yep we have flies in the house though fortunately not too many. We also have daffodils out, blossom on some trees and the odd rose left from last year though only with the odd petal left. Its also been at the top end of the temperature scale for keeping our tortoise in the garage. She might have to come out early this year if the temperature keeps up. Unfortunately the stinging nettles have started to sprout too which isn't so great.

 

[Lime]

My observation concerning flies is that since this area has had wheely bins the fly population has plummeted.
Even in the summer I hardly ever see a fly now.
Back in the good old days of burst black bags flies were everywhere.

 

[DaveBrigg]

When we started work on our house in August there was a regular indoor appearance of butterflies, mostly Peacock and Tortoiseshell. We still get one or two a week downstairs. There are also several mosquitoes every evening - the small ones that can be squashed if you take them by surprise while they are looking for a vein. The house was empty for 18 months before we moved in, so although it still gets icy in here at times, it must be comparatively warm.

 

[Nemesis]

We have snowdrops, we also had snow today.

 

[Lime]

When we started work on our house in August there was a regular indoor appearance of butterflies, mostly Peacock and Tortoiseshell. We still get one or two a week downstairs. There are also several mosquitoes every evening - the small ones that can be squashed if you take them by surprise while they are looking for a vein. The house was empty for 18 months before we moved in, so although it still gets icy in here at times, it must be comparatively warm.

I hardly ever see a butterfly now.
They seem to have disappeared where I live.
I was working in the garden today when a thought crossed my mind.
It was that I was the only person in my area likely to do any gardening this winter.
Then when Spring comes they will all come out with their sprays and slug pellets killing off everything there is.
Hardly surprising there are so few butterflies.

 

[Nemesis]

Well, my planned day in the garden now off the agenda as we are currently in the midst of being bombarded by hailstones the size of marbles.

 

[skier-hughes]

After torrential rain all night we are now just having a very windy day.....

Just pop your glass outside, bring it in, add scotch !!

 

[Nemesis]

Add ice???? To Ardbeg?????

No chance!

 

[skier-hughes]

N idea, never been a spirits drinker

We have one willow and one dead Oak down in the wind, strangely marooning us in the house as the Oak is now across our driveway adn the willow is across the track which we could use to access our neighbours drive.

I think I'll put my hard hat on to walk the dogs.

 

[Nemesis]

Well, we are burning the apple tree which blew down a couple of years' ago..

Get the chain saw out...

 

[Gervase]

Just secured myself a nice bottle of Glenmorangie, thanks to the weather.
A colleague of my wife rang to say he wouldn't be able to offer her a lift today because he'd found himself trying to mount a a lump of fallen tree in his Volvo on a wet bend in the dark. The result was a branch about nine foot long and as thick as my thigh firmly wedged under the car, which was seeping badly from a torn sump and ruptured fuel tank.
Thank heavens for proper farm jacks and Land Rovers. I was able to nip out of the house - away from the power cuts and a spouse who didn't seem entirely gruntled at having to put on her warpaint by candle-light - and free the tree from the embrace of the amorous Volvo.
Anyway the net result of the pre-dawn efforts was a bottle of one of my favourite malts. It's an ill wind...

 

[Nemesis]

Can we all come and drink it? I'm fed up with the miserable weather.

I'm supposed to be making marmalade but the power cuts put me off midboil and can't get any enthusiasm up again!

 

[sarahj]

Our crocuses are blooming, but no snowdrops yet, and our roses haven't stopped blooming, and we too get butterflies in the house on a regular basis.

 

[Pford75]

Daffs are out in bloom in Norfolk

 

[Nemesis]

Anyone heard a cuckoo yet?

 

[biffvernon]

Surface temperature analysis map for December 2006 from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The datum period for comparison is 1951 to 1980. Note the large positive temperature anomalies over large tracts of North America, Europe and Russia which were 4 to 8 degrees C warmer this December compared with the datum period .
For comment and analysis see The Oil Drum

 

[Penners]

Has anybody else got flies creeping around?

None here, but I've been working in the attic of my daughter's thatched house in Norfolk, and there's been a substantial population of cluster flies.

I carefully trap them in a humane way, take them up the road and release them in a nice warm barn where there are plenty of cattle droppings for them to feed on.

(and if you believe that....)

 

[Penners]

Surface temperature analysis map for December 2006

It's interesting to see that, 12 months earlier, although much of North America was again substantially warmer than average, Alaska and the Bering Sea area was actually 10 degrees colder than normal.