The inside of the nesting box I have for solitary bees (Mason Bees, Osmia rufa) for my garden. They’re not hive bees, as in honey bees, but are good pollinators, hence my improved fruit crops last year. Each tube is a cocoon housing a hibernating bee, there are about a dozen more in the large release tube top left, to which I have added another twenty.

Read more: My Mason Bees

Merry Christmas and All the Best for 2016 to you.

Some of the highlights of a full year.

• Hiking on the national park island Port Cros, facing Mt. Blanc and Great Gable in the Lake District
• A train holiday in regional trains (TER) Marseille - Sisteron - Briançon, Briançon - Die - Avignon, Avignon - Arles - Marseille
• GLME 2015 Ascension bike camp and Snetterton Circuit and the Le Bol d'Or with many friends.
• Riding solo many other places Apexes on the Col de l'Espigoulier | Ardèche Gorge | Autumn vineyards | and much more
• Hearing Jonas Kaufmann as Andrea Chénier at The Royal Opera
• Seeing face-to-face Bruegal's Hunters in the Snow, one of the first paintings which I made a connection with as a teenager
• And lots of photography including Quartier des Créatives | The Kingdom of Black and White and my other galleries

The future is here! This is how it looks like when a fibre internet connection finally arrives at your block. The fibre connection comes all the way in to the telecomms bay in the building, no last leg as coax or twisted pair, as in London. And Orange tells us about this technological marvel with a laser-printed note taped to the wall by our postboxes! Not that I will be subscribing any time soon, 4G suits my needs for now in Marseille.

Yes more of my view of the mountains about to disappear: the block on the right was completed recently and has only just started to be occupied since I noted it previously on here: Now you see it - now you don't: Marseille progress? - August 2014