Ugh...

Insects seem to be quite healthy on a diet of organic vegetables, so maybe they'll work for me too. Some of the creepy crawlies I find clinging on to the food seem astonishingly robust, considering they must have been washed, packed and shrink-wrapped. They're still perky after all that, but they can't have a very stressful life - they don't go to work, or use public transport in the rush hour either (except when they're having a ride home in people's supermarket carrier bags).

I've had a plague of black insects unleashed onto my kitchen blinds from some unidentified, rapidly breeding creature in my broccoli. It took a few days to get rid of them all. I've had a large-ish coppery-brown beetle, about half an inch long, escaping from my mushrooms and leaping into the sink. Bad move actually, with the plughole nearby.... [evil laugh].

Today, I found a bedraggled bird's feather in the watercress. Nearly 2 inches long and that's just the hard quill bit, so not an insignificant bit of down. It put me off making my sandwiches, funnily enough... I kept wondering where the rest of the bird was, wondering if there was a whole dead one minus its feather in some watercress vat somewhere. I made a banana and peanut butter sandwich instead, and there were definitely no little surprises in that, dead or alive.

I know all the insects are organic and probably quite edible to people with unusual tastes in delicacies, or celebrities on reality TV shows, but they're strangely unappetising to me. I think I'll stick with 'normal' veg for a bit, until the memories have faded. My virus has gone anyway, so maybe they did help after all...

PS in case I sound like a hard-faced insect-hater, I'm not. I get spiders out of the bath when they're stuck and put them outside. I just prefer them to do their own insect thing and stay out of my food.

Oooh yes, and I've been doing this blog for a year now - I never thought I'd last that long! I was persuaded to start it by Robin, after some of those conversations we have when 'The Bill' has finished, and also by Dr Klang and Dr Reddington. Well, let's see where it is in another year's time, eh!