thoughts on a warm day

london 5.36am 18C sunny but clouds, thursday 2018

yesterday i was hoping for rain, because it was forecast, but it never did get any and i was hanging out in chelsea,(for my circuit training) and westminster. it was cooler, and cloudy but no rain. this morning i see an article that says wimbledon tennis was interrupted by rain. it never ceased to amaze me that the rain in london is so selective. i would have welcomed rain yesterday, but then that is life, when u want rain it never comes, and it will fall on areas where it is not welcomed. nevertheless, yesterday was very pleasant because it was cooler.

also, in the same article, they were talking of flying ants. none of that where i live so i am not aware of this invasion.  so it looks like that is selective invasion happening again in london.

i think they are termites, because they go through a life cycle where they fly to mate. in malaysia we get to see it, they pair up and fall to the ground, where they shed their wings and the pair would scuttle off into the undergrowth, or across the living room floor, to wherever they go to enjoy married bliss. haha. and produce lots of babies. during that time, we will get to walk about with flying insects getting into our eyes, and then seeing their wings littering the ground. they dont bite, thank goodness. but it is interesting that a tropical phenomenon like flying ants, should come to london.

and i have heard of people saying they have mosquitos biting them. how odd, dont you think? to see mosquitos in london. i know it happens, because i saw mosquito larvae breeding in stagnant water in a garden in tooting broadway, in the garden of a house where a charity used to cook food for HIV people.  i was one of those who distributes the food to them. that system of bringing food to them in their homes has been replaced by another system, where they have to go to a place to eat communally with others, and so at a stroke they got rid of volunteers like us as we are not needed anymore. it was not efficient, using a lot of cars to drive to everyone’s home to give them one meal each time. so it was not surprising that they changed their method of operation.

i can still remember that time when i saw the mosquito larvae rising up to breathe  and falling back into the depths , and wondering why i did not turn the containers upside down and get rid of the water trapped in them, and their larvae. i never thought of that. at that time, all i could think of was wishing i got oil to spread over the surface, like they do in malaysia , with kerosene.

i wonder if that practise is still used nowadays… you have a man with a kerosene tank on his back and he would operate a pump to spray it on vegetation and any place where stagnant water can collect. most especially on the bananas trees.  these men were quite a common sight when i was growing up.