“There’s an interesting hoverfly here,” I called out to the menfolk, who were watering the patio plants. (Or at any rate, the patio.) “Shall we go and see what Grandma’s found?” said R to the Boy Wonder. And then, a few seconds later, “We might need to go quickly though, or it could fly away before we get there…”
The Boy, still suffering under some kind of gastric bug, and therefore inclined to be contra-suggestive, meandered vaguely in my direction, but determinedly slowly, and as R coaxed him onwards I could hear the grandparental stress level rising. Luckily though, it was a cold morning and the hoverfly wasn’t able to make a getaway, so she was still on the aucuba when they eventually arrived. I told them that she was a hornet hoverfly, and explained to B what hovering was; and then, because he looked a little taken aback by the sheer size of her (about an inch long in old money) I told him that she was shy and gentle, and couldn’t possibly hurt us, and that she was just pretending to be a bigger, fiercer insect so that everyone would leave her alone. “Like when you pretend to be a scary monster, ” I said, ” to make Granddad and me run away.” At this point he asked R to put him down, and I assumed I was losing my audience, but it turned out that he wanted to be picked up by me instead, because I was standing closer and could give him a better view. After we’d looked at her for a few minutes I said that the kind thing would be for us to go away and leave her in peace, because she was probably frightened of us but it was too cold for her to fly away, and then explained as simply as I could that insects can’t move very well when they’re cold, and pointed out that she was deliberately resting where the sun would shine on her and warm her up if it ever came out from behind the clouds. B repeated much of this back to me a few times, until he was sure he had it right, and then we moved away and got on with the rest of our morning.
Much later, on the way back to Wales, the Boy woke from a very long sleep and noticed that it was now a bright afternoon. “Iss sunny now!” he said, and I agreed that it was. “The…. fly will be able to fly away now,” he said, “because iss sunny and she will be all warmed up!” “Yes,” I said. “You’re right – the hoverfly will be all warmed up.” “Hoverfly!” he squeaked, spotting the name that had been evading him, and seizing it as it went past. “The hoverfly will be able to fly away now, because iss sunny an’ she will be warm, an’ her wings will be warm.” “That’s absolutely right,” I said, trying not to burst into tears. “You’re a clever boy.”
Shortly after this B’s colour suddenly changed from pink to green, and he whiffled gently and asked for a cuddle. Alert by now to the signs, I threw an old towel across him and thrust a large plastic jug under his chin, in time to catch most of the contents of his stomach – by this time largely water, because he’d eaten virtually nothing all day. Five minutes after vomiting, with his colour now back to normal, he looked down with great interest into the jug I was still holding, and said “Be careful, Grandma. Don’t pour that sick all over Granddad’s car!” Hilarity ensued, to his great satisfaction, and luckily a few minutes after that we arrived at Tredegar, which has loos next to the car park where I was able to clean out the jug. Then we handed Boy and (on a just-in-case basis) jug and towel to his parents, to effect the rest of his journey home, while R and I made our way back to the Shire, and an appointment with some cleaning and tidying, and a small bucket of Aperol.
I didn’t forget though, to take a minute to visit the aucuba and look for our hoverfly, and was then able to send a message to B via his mother, telling him that he was right: the garden was sunny and warm, and the hoverfly had flown away. By this time he’d already asked for an early night and gone to bed, but she’ll tell him tomorrow, and show him this photo, and I’m confident that he’ll be pleased.
