The power of marmalade

I posted a picture of a bee in my PUD post of a couple of days ago and whilst I was searching through all my bee pictures (of which there must be over a hundred), I also saw a picture or three of another insect in my gallery that brightened up my day. And then I remembered reading about marmalade on one of Fiona's posts.

So guess what I decided to do this morning. Yes, I decided that the time was right to have marmalade for breakfast!

This was a brand new jar of marmalade that I had not opened. I remember as a kid helping my grandmother make jams and marmalades. The marmalade though was always made with oranges which sometimes I found a bit too sweet, I don't think that sugar control was really a thing back then!

If you look at the label on the jar, you can see that this one is called Three Fruit Marmalade, which means that not only does it have Oranges but it also has Grapefruit and Lemons. I wonder if it should be two grapefruits or two grapefruit what a difficult language English really is!

Anyway I decided to have some marmalade on a piece of sourdough malted wheat bread with a wee dod of butter.

Of course, I had to have a cup of coffee with it. That was my breakfast and it was bleeding delicious. I think I shall be having that again very soon.

I am not a big breakfast eater, the more I eat then the more I want to keep eating throughout the day. It is as if my gastric juices start flowing and tummy says feed me, feed me NOW.

I often used to only eat one meal and that was at night.

This morning I was reading a study that was linking morning eating with mortality rates, and the crux of it was that people who were eating bigger breakfasts were living longer.

Enough of the food, what was the picture that I had seen in my gallery that reminded me of marmalade?

Well if you saw the lead image I am sure that you know the answer by now?

This is a marmalade hoverfly, the markings give it the name marmalade.

More specifically the marmalade hoverfly has the scientific name of Episyrphus balteatus. Although it lives all year round, you tend not to notice them in winter in the UK. Gardeners love them because they feed on aphids and they are also nectar feeders on garden flowers.

Whenever I see one, I think spring is coming, now that the small flowers are starting to pop up, hopefully, I shall see some of these wee beauties flying around and yes they really do hover. Yes I am willing warmer weather to get here, like yesterday!

Unfortunately, many people confuse them with wasps and kill them. But I urge you, please leave all hoverflies alone, they are wonderful creatures like the bees. You don't kill bees so please don't kill hoverflies either.

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Just before I go, don't forget about the latest Blog of the Month challenge from the wonderful Silver Bloggers community.

I edited the title of this article as I was writing it, because .... firstly today is my six month anniversary of joining Hive and secondly I hit the reputation score of 61!

I have learnt heaps in the last two months of being active in Hive and I am preparing a post about that for next week.

As this post is being posted in the SB community, I have set delegation for 5% to @hive-106316

Thanks for reading and have a magical rest of your day!