Extreme Knitting Redhead: Ladybird Love?

Monday, March 5, 2012

Ladybird Love?

Don't they look sweet cuddled up together!

Unfortunately I think they are both forms of the Harlequin Ladybird which is the most invasive ladybird on Earth and has spread from Essex to Orkney in only four years and is now one of the fastest spreading non-native insects in Europe. Scientists view them as a major threat to our native species so are looking at ways to control their spread.

They've been over-wintering in our bedroom and each day I'd find them in a different place, usually around the window frame but never together until the other day.

Now they seem to have disappeared and I suspect they might have gone outside, tempted by the warm weather we've been experiencing. As it's now turned cold and wet again I bet they wish they'd stayed indoors.

Yesterday was my first 20 miler of the year so you can guess what the weather did - it poured with rain and blew a gale at me for the duration of my run! I didn't mind really as once I was wet through I couldn't get any wetter so I just got on with it.

I'd chosen a route that was unrelenting in its hilliness for the first 13 miles. I was either going up a hill or down a hill for the full 13 miles with only a few hundred metres of flat bits. What usually happens when I run this route is that I'm really tired for the remaining 7 miles and my pace slows right down but yesterday I didn't slow at all. In fact, even though I stopped to collect a newspaper at the shop in a neighbouring village, I managed to shave 15 minutes off my usual time and I ran the last mile (mostly uphill) at marathon pace to finish in 4 hours exactly.

It was a great confidence booster.

1 comment:

Shan said...: I've never heard of the Harlequin ladybird and I'm a little freaked out now!; March 7, 2012 at 11:40:00 AM PST

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.