Beekeeper's apprentice
Feb. 8th, 2006 01:27 pmWe went to the bee meeting. There was a talk, on what we should be doing, and we have done none of it - except now, we have. T and I have spent the morning checking that we still have bees after the winter (we do), and cleaning the spare hives, which are filthy - wax grub casings, old wax, and general shit.
After last night's meeting we went to the pub and ran into someone else who was at the meeting, a local farmer. This has been a lesson to me not to be close-mouthed about what I do - T and I tend to be a bit reserved about the witchcraft business and the writing, because the perception of this area is that it is insular, rural, and conservative. We told the farmer what we actually do for a living, anyway, and it turns out that not only does he supply rams' skulls to a local Goth shop, but he worked for 20 years in Holland with the European Space Agency.
Years ago, when I was a fan and went to conventions, something that always irritated me was the categorisation of non-genre folk as 'mundanes.' I don't know whether fandom still does this, but I hope it's gone the way of the dinosaur. I find people very accepting of what I do: they're interested, they don't tend to sneer or make facetious remarks, and they are interesting in turn.
After last night's meeting we went to the pub and ran into someone else who was at the meeting, a local farmer. This has been a lesson to me not to be close-mouthed about what I do - T and I tend to be a bit reserved about the witchcraft business and the writing, because the perception of this area is that it is insular, rural, and conservative. We told the farmer what we actually do for a living, anyway, and it turns out that not only does he supply rams' skulls to a local Goth shop, but he worked for 20 years in Holland with the European Space Agency.
Years ago, when I was a fan and went to conventions, something that always irritated me was the categorisation of non-genre folk as 'mundanes.' I don't know whether fandom still does this, but I hope it's gone the way of the dinosaur. I find people very accepting of what I do: they're interested, they don't tend to sneer or make facetious remarks, and they are interesting in turn.