Hornet

[3c66b]

While clearing out the loft (move is tomorrow: all packed and ready to go) I found the largest wasp I'd ever seen -- it looked a good 4 cm long. I wish I'd got a picture, but my main concern was not to be sharing a dark hot loft space with this thing, so I let it out through the (otherwise completely pointless) loft skylight. Afterwards I found the little paper nest it had been making, and that let me convince myself it had been a hornet, presumably a lone queen setting up a new home.

In spite of the fact that I know one doesn't want hornets nesting in one's loft, the fact that they exist outside books makes me feel obscurely pleased.