Vicious bees, hedges and cramp (OR why I shouldn't be allowed out alone)

First the good news: I did 40km on my last ride, which is my longest ride so far.
The bad news: I got stung by a bee and fell into a hedge.

I would like to say the bee sting and the fall were related, but they were several kilometres apart. 
It was my third run-in with a bee since I started focusing on cycling.
I don’t know what it is with me and the animal/insect kingdom. I went through a spate of incidents with cows when I was training for a marathon. Now it’s bees. Two rides ago a bee flew into my forehead and bounced off. One ride ago a bee flew into the spokes of my front wheel, did a few buzzy revolutions and got spat outside the other side.

Perhaps this third bee was seeking vengeance. You have to hand it to him – he’s just run into a solid object at speed and has the wherewithal to sting. I stopped a little way down the road to inspect the damage. You can see the little bump the bee left behind in the photo here (it’s also a great shot of my wrinkles). While I was inspecting my forehead, a crazed dog started barking furiously at me (see photo below). 
Fortunately he was behind a gate or things could have turned nasty.

What pleased me about the incident was that I stayed upright. I removed my sunglasses in case the bee was trying to get away but was trapped, and when that didn’t work I swept him away and then I removed the sting – all while riding.

Maybe I was finally getting this whole biking thing. 

The bruising resulting from my run-in with hedge.

But a few kilometres later, a brief stop went awry (I haven't quite got to grips yet with the whole unclipping-bike-shoe-from-pedal-before-trying-to-put-foot-down thing). My head ended up in a hedge, my right foot was free but in the air and my left leg was pinned under the bike with my left foot still clipped into the pedal. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse my left calf cramped. Trying to act as if this was some sort of bizarre stretch I had planned to do, I managed to unclip my left foot, stand upright, stretch the cramped calf, pull leaves and twigs from my helmet and carry on as if nothing had happened. During the remaining few kilometres I started designing, in my head, a panic button for the handlebars that, when pressed, releases your bike shoes from your pedals (a bit like treadmill panic buttons you can push if there is some emergency requiring urgent stopping). We can put man on the moon; I'm sure it can be done.

As the rain poured down (it had been 28 deg C with no sign of moisture when I started the ride) I reflected that all in all, it wasn’t a bad ride. All was well until I came to the end and put my weight on my left leg when I unclipped and it cramped up again.

I stayed upright. I’m taking that as a win.