Thursday, August 21, 2008

Happy Hour at Bliss

Dear customer,

If you want to experience the full effects of happy hour, please click on the video bar on the right. The first option starts a bit rude, the rest not so much.

Thank you,

The Bliss Management

It's happy hour at Bliss and the newly opened Nectar Bar in the new border is buzzing with happy costumers.
There's bees everywhere.
Some of them drinking in a private room and hard to find.
Bees are not the only customers of course, in the 5 minutes that I took these pics I spotted 7 butterflies enjoying themselves in the Nectar Bar. It may have opened only recently but it is already a ginormous success.
Believe it or not, but there are 3 butterflies on this Verbena bonariensis. Do you see them?
We already have a big clientele of various species so we do not only serve nectar but much, much more, like
bread crumbs
bird seeds
peanuts and
clear, cool water. Hey Mr Blackbird, get out of the water supply, it's for drinking not bathing! Really, some customers like it so much here that they make themselves quite at home. Which is fine of course, but there are limits.
What the .....? Didn't I just say that there are limits? Slugs, who needs them?
Excuse I, did you say slugs? Where can I find them?
Let me at them, let me at them, ladies first!

And while Mr Frog and Mrs Hedgehog took care of the slug problem for me, so kind of them really, I was serving a few other hungry customers.
Although some seem to believe in self service. Here's Delia munching away for queen and country on a bit of grass.
Mrs Pointytail, who's looking kind of not amused, feels it's taking too long before she gets what she ordered. But I have only two hands, you know, and there are sooooo many customers today.
Like Macavity and Surprise, who are patiently waiting their turn to order.
Macavity to Surprise: hello pet, do you come here often?
Surprise to Macavity: duh, I live here!
Also patiently waiting are Jeeves (l) and Sibber while some other kitties are happily chewing their extra rare steaks on the lawn.
Hang on, this can't be right. Not In My Garden, you don't. Make yourselves scarce!
Sibber: waitress, can I have another extra large saucer of double cream, slightly stirred not shaken, hold the olive?
Yes sir, as soon as I've finished with this customer,
Macavity happily munching away on a cheese mouseburger with a side order of roasted Housemartins.
Service with a smile, that's what you get at Bliss. Do come again!

In the making of this post no animals where harmed although the waitress got ever so slightly mauled when she chased away the big kitties.

copyright 2008: Y.E.W. Heuzen

39 comments:

Lis vom Lindenhof said...

Nette Fotos und dabei zum teil noch so lustig geschrieben! Nur auf Schecken und Löwen kann ich gerne im Garten verzichten.:-)

LG Lis

Anonymous said...

What a great Nectar Bar - sounds like its really buzzing.
(Happy hour is fun too)
Regards
Karen

Anonymous said...

Now that's my ideal happy hour!
What a wonderful selection of animals and plants.
Thanks, and I look forward to my next visit! xx

Cheryl said...

Yolanda....you are so funny....I have a smile from ear to ear....I do hope the scrathes are healing.


It is lovely to see so much wildlife in your space...what a wonderful habitat.....Mr Hedgehog is such a treat to see....

I have a delightful thrush at the moment....she is taking snails by the pot load......

Anonymous said...

Well, at least your bloggy visitors don't need any assistance - they are so well entertained by your other guests! When Mr. Froggy and Mrs. Hedgehog finish at your place, could you have them send a long distance message to their cousins (who must live somewhere near me) to come for my slugs?

Rhonda said...

Oh my gosh..that was so fun! I laughed outloud. What a busy day! I love the way you worked all of that..great post.

Gail said...

You know how to party and entertain a crowd! Appetizers and drinks at Bliss! The finest guests stop by with just a few gate crashers! How do we get on the list!

I wish a hedgehog could toddle through my yard!

gail

Lisa at Greenbow said...

I am delighted to be able to attend your happy hour. It is fun to hang out at such a beautifully appointed garden.

Frances, said...

HI YE, thanks so much for alerting me to the happy hour, I would not want to miss such a delightful party! Your guests are diverse, aren't they? I laughed out loud at the frog and hedgehog. You are a good hostess to supply even a distasteful to some item on the menu for those customers. Like Gail I wish we had the adorable Mrs. H here to feast on our slug population. The lion shot cracked me up also. Your posts are always so entertaining, well done and cheers (clink!)!

Anonymous said...

So lovely, so many animals, birds, I love it

(but i kill all snils :(

Anonymous said...

So lovely, so many animals, birds, I love it

(but i kill all snils :(

emmat said...

Urghhhhhh that stuff on those slugs.... :-)

A wildlife gardener said...

Gosh! From the third last photo I can see how much your kitties have grown, Yolanda :)

Great to see your nectar borders coming alive with all the wildlife. What a very smart little hedgehog too :)

I love colour so much...so I appreciate the sunshine colour you chose :)

Love the boule de neige rose...so pretty :)

Barbara said...

After having had some problems with leaving my comments in various blogs, I finally manage it again. What a pleasure to read this amusing post about all the hungry guests :-) !!
Have a nice weekend!
Barbara

Anonymous said...

Great fun - I had to smile. Lovely to see all that wildlife, especially the big cats!

Poppins said...

Haha! You really have have a lot of guests to take care of. If you want to get rid of some of them (the slugs for an example) maybe you could use some ideas from the detective story I read. LoL
No, I have not seen Rosemary and Thyme. Hopefully it will come on Swedish telly as well.
Love
Poppins

PS I am impressed by your Swedish!

Karin said...

Hi there! Wow, your own nectar bar. That's amazing. I really need to plant verbena next year. :) What a lovely post btw. But I could really manage without those slugs (they have eatan the whole garden when I was away). Now I'm back from my blog brak. Really enjoyed all your posts. Boule de Neige is such a beauty! Have a nice weekend! Kram Karin

Ruth Welter said...

Hello Yolanda, what lovely photos of all your garden visitors...well, except for the lions...LOL, not sure you would be too happy if they were really in your garden right?? Thanks for sharing as always.

Ruth

Joe said...

Wow...you have an amazing garden and great pictures. What an interesting post...the last line was hilarious!

:)

Garden Cats + Crafts said...

Bin ich aber beruhigt, dass die Löwen nicht in Deinem Garten wohnen. Aber Happy Hour bei Bliss, da geht es allen Tieren gut. Meinetwegen auch den Schnecken. Sind immer noch besser als Löwen.
Schönen Sonntag und liebe Grüße, Birgit

Jane O' said...

Yolanda, I think you have barkeeping down to a science :)
Great post. I loved it!

Anonymous said...

Yolanda, What a sweet post! Love all your kitties...but the really big ones...well they better find somewhere else to stay. You've got your hands full with the rest of your 'customers'! Beautiful gardens, sigh, I wish mine looked like yours. I just finished yanking out miles of english ivy that had encroached into the yard four feet from the property line. Oh yes, and the snails...yucky...I catch them and send them away in the garbage collection. Now, I can start planting pretty flowers and schrubs, etc. I'll be checking your blog again to see what you're planting.
Hugs, Aunt Bea

Anonymous said...

Too cute. You have a lot of happy customers there. I Mr. Toad and Mrs. Hedgehog took care of the slugs. Yuck.~~Dee

Arabella Sock said...

I just found my way to your great blog. Lovely cats... perhaps I need more than two after all but don't you have to spread the love and cuddles around too thinly? Give them all a hug from me..

Anonymous said...

Hello there, love your happy hours picture parade (except for the slugs). :-) Take good care, Andrea

Kerri said...

Plant and they will come...apparently :) What a busy girl you are with all those customers! It must be nice to have a few who are willing to help themselves!
I'm trying not to think about where those big kitties got their steaks. But you've obviously done a head count, so I shouldn't worry.
As long as everyone's happy..that's the main thing :)
Oops, I must go...I have customers of my own...it's feeding time for the "Fair Dinkum Farm" cats!
Thanks for the happy few minutes. Cheers! :)

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed your nectar bar and the musical entertainment. The photos are wonderful, and I especially enjoyed seeing the hedgehog. Wish we had them here. Alas, I can't find the music for sale - but I know I will be walking around humming (and probably singing) Happy Hour all day long. Thank you for a good time!

Anonymous said...

Een mooie bar met restaurant heb je :-)

Shirley said...

Hi there Yolanda :-D

What a fun post – you are a master of them indeed! I smiled the whole way through :-D

Great to see you have toads and hedgehogs too as well as many of the similar garden birds we have here in Scotland. Mm… how did you know who was Mr and who was Mrs? I wonder ;-)

Have a great week. Hope you find a good home for Jeeves :-D

Annie in Austin said...

This was an extra cute post, Yolanda- from the Bees drinking in their private room to the hedgehog straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

Thanks for making us all smile!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Mr. McGregor's Daughter said...

What a delightful array of creatures! (Except for the slugs.) I especially like the hedgehog, but that's probably because we don't have any around here.

HappyMouffetard said...

Wonderful! A garden truly full of life and love.

Glo said...

Service with a smile, indeed! What a delightful way to personify your clientele ~ thoroughly enjoyed sharing happy hour in your garden :)

My Mother's Garden said...

What a great garden for the butterflies and bees! Kittens too!
I love the blue poppy? What a great gift to the earth.
Karrita

Maria said...

Ha ha ha. Those lions really took me by surprise.

Carol Michel said...

It looks like everyone came to happy hour! Am I too late? I love a good party! Thanks for sharing this one with all of us.

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

em said...

what a great post! really gives a flavor for the life teeming around you! one funny thing is that though you live thousands of miles away from me, the butterfly on the verbena bonariensis looks exactly as they do in my garden! however, i don't have cute little frogs and hedgehogs to eat my slugs!!!! thanks for another wonderful post.

lisa said...

Very entertaining post! Looks like the nectar bar is buzzing but under control...the kitty bar needs a bouncer! Those big kitties look dangerous! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Wat een heerlijke log!
Tovert een grote glimlach op mijn gezicht, dankje!