Trust the kids to have keen eyes in spotting the tiniest of bugs, insects and whatnots hiding in the bushes as we adults stay oblivious to our surrounding as we walk past them. (Funny how they cannot see the things we need them to see when those things are right in front of their noses!)

I’ve been amazed at the things they managed to spot and how excited they are when they find them, often asking lots of questions. We always stop for a few minutes to look closer, examine and lust at the wonder of nature.  From slugs to snails, to all the different types and sizes of spiders to the various colours of the ladygub ladybugs we see. Even wasps and bees!

Spud and Squirt have both been very fascinated with spiders and ladybugs. Here are some of our beautiful find:

Cross Spider 

Known as the Kruispin in the Dutch language, it is a common garden or orb-weaver spider which tend to come out at this time of the year.  Their colours range from light yellow  to orange-brown or dark grey. All the European species having mottled markings across the back. This one that we saw has about five large white dots forming a cross and its size is about the size of a small tomato.

From my research, these Orb Spiders are known to eat their webs along with the small insect caught within the web every night within a couple of minutes! They would then spin a new one in the morning. I love how symmetrically delicate the web was designed here!  

Source:  NaturemappingFoundation

Ladybug or Ladybird

 

These little creatures are found usually on the leaves of the bushes, or at least that was where the kids spotted them. They are not even a bug, they are considered as beetles! Do you know that they are natural enemies of many insects like aphids, white flies and mites? Especially the aphids and for a tiny little bug, a single ladybug can eat as many as 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. Now that’s a lot of aphids eaten. Cool, huh! They are not poisonous to human, but will release a toxic and smelly secretion if threatened.

Source: Wikipedia/Onekind.Org

Hedgehog

This little guy sneaked into our backyard one night. Cute little thing! Do you know that hedgehogs are born blind? The spikes or otherwise known as quills would only emerge through the skin after the protective membrane that covers the quills, dries, shrinks, cleaned or falls off.

Source: Read more on Wikipedia

The kids have so far, refused to touch the spiders which are usually harmless but when it comes to the ladybugs, the have no qualms handling them.

Squirt used to call those ladybugs “ladygub” when he was about a year old as he started to mouth his first few words. He could not pronounce “bug” and for a long time would call out ladygub. So we went with “gub” and  to date, the term “ladygub” stayed. We used it intermittently as our term of endearment although Squirt has refused to acknowledge that these days.

It was a shame the kids missed the hedgehog though  but got all excited when I showed them the picture the next day. It was my first time  up, close and personal with a hedgehog, too! At first, I had thought that  it was a rat a when I saw something scurrying in the dark across the open space. But surprise, surprise. Look who showed up! I was then left wondering if he was someone’s pet hedgehog or just a wild one who seems to have lost his way or maybe, had thought that he’d adopt us as his newfound family. 

Our backyard  is a treasure trove.  I’ll draw the line at wasps,  maggots and ants, though.  Especially those darn ants! I wonder what else we would find as the season changes. I’m excited! 

2 months ago, I was stressing about having to pack when the brown boxes from the movers came in. Exactly a week later from that, they came, they raided, they packed and they hauled all 77 packed boxes to be shipped to the Netherlands. The journey would take about 8 weeks.

These monsters arrived at our doorstep almost 2 weeks ago, all 77 of them:

It was a long-awaited arrival. I had flashbacks of the packing frenzy in Bangkok when I saw the boxes in the truck, waiting to be unloaded. While I was happy that our stuff finally arrived, I was also dying inside. Unpacking and trying to put them in the places of our home would be a bitch! My worst nightmare was about to be realised. 

One by one, the boxes came in filling in whatever little space there was. My heart palpitated at the same time as I was dreading and hating the thought of unpacking these monsters all over again. Within the hour, our home was looking like a bomb had exploded. I looked at the boxes and I wanted to cry;  it’ll be months before we can unpack and sort out everything! 

When the rest of the crew came in, they all got busy sorting the boxes in their respective places. They then ripped open the boxes soon enough and started unpacking. One by one, the items came out of the boxes with the very first items being my spices.

How convenient!

What I did not realise was, my spices and baking ingredients alone had taken up 3 full boxes. Problem there! My kitchen has no bloody storage space left. Then, there was more stuff for the kitchen when more boxes were opened up…  

My pots and pans, our crockeries, baking equipment, glasses, mugs, coffee machine, knives, 6 water bottles and a dozen flasks enough for us to set up a shop…and more stuff which I have forgotten about.  I did not remember we had sooo many boxes for the kitchen! Where did they come from?!

The crew worked fast and again, I could barely catch up with them to put things in places when they were passed on to me. They all ended up on the floor and on the window sill and pretty much everywhere. It took the movers about 4-5 hours till they were done with the sorting, unpacking and clearing.

Even after they were done, we still have to house those items so to speak and re-sort the necessary. It was not a fun evening that day. We ended up sleeping close to 2 a.m just to clear out the kitchen and the bedrooms, clothes included (all hung and folded) ! We were exhausted but hey! not too shabby at all.

We still have about 8-10 boxes that remained unopened; with about 4 boxes filled with books.Nothing pressing. We probably will never open them till our next move. 

That said, I was actually quite surprised that the movers helped unpack most of our stuff. Impressive! Seems like My dreaded fear of unpacking lasting a lifetime was unfounded. But, what I did not realise was that in fact, Silver Bullet had requested and paid for that service. Smart! And silly me thought that they were being nice. Pffffft.

We are now whole again. We have our mattress back, my kitchen  is in full swing, the kids have their toys back and I’ve got my favourite lazy chair amongst other things.

What we don’t have is a proper storage area, but that will all be in due time.

One thing at a time. 

Those were the last from Bangkok. There’s nothing left there. Bangkok is now truly a thing of the past. Kind of surreal.