auchmeddan

Same reason as the ducks, apparently
On my drive to work this morning I hadn’t even managed to get out of the estate before I had to stop to let a Chicken (they’re feral here) and it’s little bright yellow baby chicks cross the road. I sat there for a moment as they scurried and “cheep cheep cheep”-ed their way into some bushes.

Within 2 minutes I was stopped again, this time in a queue of traffic on the main road as a parade of ducks crossed from the golf course to (I think)”Mrs Tea’s Tea Room”. I assume that “Mrs Tea” began feeding them one day a long time ago, and now they turn up every morning for breakfast. These sort of things are wonderful little quirks of living in Bermuda. I can’t imagine the morning rush-hour traffic in Edinburgh stopping on a daily basis so Ducks can get breakfast.

Unfortunately, my trip took a downturn when I popped into one of the local supermarkets to drop something off for a friend. The radio was playing Wham’s “Freedom”, which has been burned into my brain ever since…I can actually picture Andrew and George jumping about in their white shorts and throwing shuttlecocks out to adoring female fans…

…and I can’t get it out of my head!

It’s been a weird few days.

Just last week I received an email from a friend, warning of “Brown Recluse Spiders” in Bermuda. The email recounted the tale of a man bitten by one of these spiders, and included photos. Within about 2 minutes I sent an email back telling my friend that it was OK, this was a hoax that had been circulating for the past couple of years (see Brown Recluse Link at Snopes.com for the photos) and explained the basics and gave him the link to Snopes.

Unfortunately, the local newspaper “The Royal Gazette” (The Royal Gazette online) also recieved the original email, took it at face value, and published a warning on the front page of Friday’s newspaper which included one of the photos from the hoax. The local TV channel ZBM also started reporting this, and my friend heard it. It turns out he knows the broadcaster (Bermuda is a small place after all) so he called him up to tell him it was a hoax, and forwarded on my email to him.

Sadly, I wasn’t watching the news on Friday night when they read out my email to my friend (with both names removed) debunking the story, and they provided the link to snopes! How funny is that!?

As of today it now appears that there was a man in Bermuda bitten by a spider at some point in the last few weeks, and when his wife went online to find out more information about his injury she found (and fell for) the hoax information and then panicked.

At this point, it seems there’s still no evidence of Brown Recluse Spiders in Bermuda.

I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for them…..along with Giant Squid!