It IS cricket!

Ste Madalgaire
Yesterday's weather: Just gorgeous. 27 degrees
Madagascan proverb: You can hold a cricket in your hand but its song will be all over the field

I really hate ladders, so why, you might ask, did yesterday afternoon see me on a ladder up the apple tree?

I was fed up with the family of jays who were up there eating all the apples which are just becoming ripe. We had been sitting in the garden when an apple core dropped on the ground close by. The birds have been enjoying the fruits of our labours (well, we haven't actually laboured very hard with this apple tree) before we even get to see them ripen.

From the study window on the first floor, I can see the best of the apples at the very top of the tree. My ladder won't reach that high so I am sure the jays will be enjoying that crop today.

Whilst doing my usual investigation of the tomatoes and courgettes I spotted a strange green growth on one of the tomatoes which was just beginning to ripen. This tomato is on one of the plants that I am keeping a very close eye on for blight. Closer inspection showed that the growth was a bright green cricket, about three and a half inches long which had it's head buried in the tomato core. I didn't want to disturb it (just call me a coward, I'll confess) so I went to have another look later on. The tomato is now completely hollow, like an apple that has been cored and I couldn't see the cricket anywhere - until I moved the plant! Well, I know how you can avoid slugs eating your plants, but what to do about crickets? I hire Dickie Bird to send him back to the pavillion, I suppose.