I have a phobia-I do not like buzzing insects. Years ago I got a bite from a mosquito and my arm swelled up very badly and got infected. The treatment at the doc's was not very pleasant and since then I've been very wary of anything that buzzes and comes near me. Bees are okay though - I like them and they look like velvet. Wasps are evil - I hate them. Mosquitoes are the worst of all.
I have a net screen at my window so that things can't come in at night - but the funny thing is that they sometimes do. I don't know if they use magic or something but the other night I was sure there was something buzzing near me once I'd put the light out.
So I waited for Mr FF to drift off, whilst flapping my arms around so that nothing could settle on them and then put the light on and scrutinised the room - every inch of it - with both bichons in their baskets nearby watching me wondering if it was already time to get up for breakfast. I couldn't see anything but I knew it was there.
It is odd how much noise you can hear when there is no noise. We have a huge buddleia bush outside the window and you can often hear midnight buzzes around that, that is what I tried to convince myself that it was. But then I felt myself being bitten - well I thought I did; I could have sworn something landed on me. So I put the light back on but there was no red mark. I gave it a scratch anyway though and put some anti-bite cream on just in case. By now it was about 2am.
So the light went back off; I lay there hearing imaginery buzzing and feeling very anxious. the next thing it was 6am and Poppy bichon was waking me up for her brekkie and toilet ritual - Misty the sleepier bichon not far behind. Me very tired and grumpy. But not bitten.
30 comments:
There's nothing worse that hearing that high-pitched sound a mosquito makes as it buzzes around your head when your trying to sleep. One got in our room about a week ago. We couldn't find him, but when we turned out the lights to go to sleep he returned. Grr.
I'm allergic to mosquito bites too and also come up in big red lumps...they are nasty wee beasties!! When we were in Thailand I got bitten so many times that Chris was offering to hire me out for weddings, funerals and bar mitzvah's because if I was there then no-one else would get bitten!! (he is a charmer!!)
C x
Ooh - the power of your imagination! (But sometimes you wish it would take a rest - say, - in the middle of the night!)
Shaken AND stirred (but not bitten!) in the night...
I wonder if you've still got that buddleia?!!
Great post as always!
xxLola:)
PS almost sounds like one for Poirot: "The Case Of The Mysteriously Missing Mosquito"!
PPS thanks for stopping by. Certain you'd look fantastic in PB or St T!! :)
I can't bear the mosquito buzz either and have spent many a wakeful night trying to locate and exterminate.
But being allergic - double grief poor you!!!
Oh I so identify with this FF. We also have mozzy screens on every window but there's always one that manages to get in. I've spent many sleepless nights with the light on scrutinizing the room to no avail. I also get quite hysterical when wasps come anywhere near me. When I was 4 years old a wasp went into my ear and stung me and I had to go to hospital to have the wasp removed. So if you ever see a woman with hands over her ears when wasps are about...it's me.
Mozzy screens and plug in tablet job.
I do not hear a buzz...it is more like a NEEEEEEEEEEEEEE then I bash myself around the head!
LOL........Blu x
I cannot rest if there is a moth in the same room as me. I loathe them. I've managed to get past the "kill them instantly" stage and now steel myself to trap them in a container and turf them outside... but I have to be rid of them! Flies are horrible. What is it about flies that they have to be literally "in your face" all of the time. Do they have a death wish?
I check the room before going to bed...fly swat wielded with vigour...if it moves it's zapped...but inevitably on some nights there is the high pitched whine about ten minutes after going to bed.
Lights on, more action with fly swat...and then, even if successful, lying awake convinced that I can hear another one.
Goodness only knows what I'd do if living in a mozzy area! Go potty, I expect. Still, I'm not allergic. Poor you.
I just write you a lovely long letter about
Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving and the 162lb Marriage
amd Scorpions in Morocco
and it all went zap into cyber space
anyway happy weekend
Elizabeth - the thing is that I sometimes imagine I hear it. The spare room next door to our bedroom holds a lot of our networking gear and sometimes there are random noises - subtle, but strange. I then talk myself into imagining they are insects about to bite.
Carol - In the summer I stink permanently of anti-mosquito stuff; the thing is that by bedtime it has worn off and I know I can get bitten. I remember how muggy Thailand was when I was there and of course a fantastic environment to breed super amounts of the little buggers
Ladyfi - I can talk myself into imagining all sorts of things. Once when Mr FF was in the UK I imagined there was a prowler in the basement - that was not a good night. (there wasn't of course)
Nora - yep, buddleia still there :) and two others as well
Lulu - With all your night time shenanigans chasing insects about to film them you must encounter far more mozzies than I do. I bet I make far more fuss however :)
Ayak - yes, I get quite hysterical if things come near me. With all my curly hair I worry about insects getting trapped and then stinging my head.
Blu - I once got quite overcome and unwell from a plug-in. I won't have them anymore - especially with two bichons at ground level in their bedroom baskets
Steve- yes, moths are a nuisance because they flap and make a noise. And don't get me started on daddylonglegs.
The only things i don't mind funnily enough are spiders - I quite like spiders and sometimes leave flies in their webs
flyintheweb - thank goodness we don't share a house. We'd be agitating each other all the time :)
Elizabeth - yes, Hotel New Hampshire is going to be ordered when I've finished Garp. How did John Irving escape me all this time
Re disappearing messages - it has happened a lot to me lately; so aggravating
The noises from the buddleia at night are almost certainly moths.
My grandfather was blind. I remember he used to pick up bees ) from the thistles near our house(he could see them if he peered within inches of the thistels, but most times he could hear them). He would let the bees crawl over his hands, onto his face and his milky eyes. 'Nature knows what won't harm it' he used to say. And I would stand there speechless.
Just arrived in Morzine today - sitting on the balcony overlooking the Alps.Fab.
I love bumblebees too -- makes me happy to see then going about their business like little furred zeppelins.
Here's a two-part suggestion, which may help.
1. Make a house rule for insects: "You bit me; I bite you!"
2. Embroider the rule on the net screens, so that every bug coming to the house gets to see it.
That should do the trick. (Please let me know if the plan works.)
Mark - I've never heard anything like that before; what a lovely man he must have been, in touch with nature (not like me, well I am and I'm not)
Have a great time - about to Google Morzine
ContemTroub - aren't they sweet. I like watching them on the frong garden buddliea when I take the dogs out for their toilette. They throw themselves into it with such gusto that they come over all drunk after and have to lay down on the gravel (and then I have to stop the dogs getting curious)
Rob - okay then - and do you know what? Maybe the unusual action of positivity will make me believe that they won't cross the threshold :)
Noise in the night syndrome! I can't get back to sleep till I have identified it and, if possible, dealt with it (and I particularly sympathise with the mosquito issue. Smoke alarms cheep when the battery is low - I have sat under each alarm in turn to work out which one it is and then changed a battery at 3am just so I could sleep!
Oh I'm giggling at your nocturnal bliss destroyed by a bizzin'!
I'm having to get used to bugs in the house again after our time in Canada, where, let's be honest,there are heaps of bugs in the summer. Thanks to very sensibly screened windows and doors we were not bothered by any bugs, none, in the whole 2 years we were there!
How very interesting that the other Rob (Inukshuk) should share his experience of bugs in Canada. We're quite civilized about the whole thing. Really!
Oh no! I too can get surprised and a bit upset about insects...but I feel guilty about it because I know that they have their place in the cycle of life...still who cares when a bite can give you dengue?
Take care, Ms. FF, and sleep with a fan in the room! The moving air keeps flying insects from landing.
Oh no not you too! Boy Rugby has been doing a funny dance everywhere we go that has wasps buzzing around - he flipped so much today he nearly ended up under a car!
Do be careful...!
CA - Yes, the slightest noise can make me wake up and lie there for a long time getting twitchier and twitchier about it.
Rob I - hello there. I think your screened doors and windows must be much more effective than ours somehow
Rob - two in a row! Hope the pups are behaving themselves
Cynthia - yes, but the noise from the fan would keep me awake :) (I'm quite difficult really :)
Reasons - yes, I know that funny little dance very well :p
When we were in Egypt we had little tennis rackets which zapped flies and mozzies. Do they have those in France? (They were very cheap in Egypt.)
I also swear by Fenistil Gel which is good for bites and I can only get it in Europe.
Funnily enough one of my sisters has just opened a deli/cafe in Morzine with her husband. It is part of the Scottish chain..Berrit & Brown.
Hate wasps to. One crawled up my jeans leg once and stung me, my whole leg swelled!!!
I hate mozzies and wasps. They're nasty and irritating and a waste of space.
Word veri: spraycan
(maybe not)
One of the worst things about mossies is the irritating noise they make. When we were in the Cook Islands a few years ago we had to be very circumspect with mosquitos because they transmit dengue fever which, if you get it, I gather, you would welcome death.
Hadriana - yes, I've got a couple of the rackets - the thing is that it gives off a little whine (that I can hardly hear) when I press the button and the bichons get upset. I know I know :)
claire - oh you poor thing - it is such a shock to the system as well and leaves you paranoid for life
Dumdad - I don't like the fumes that the cans leave. There are plug-ins for the bedroom but I had one once and became quite unwell the next day. As I get older I seem to be developing all sorts of allergies
Mr w/o - oh my goodness! I'd have been in a state of terror all the time if I'd been with you. I'd have ended up a story on your blog about the crazy English gf I once had :)
Once bitten, twice ?
I do hope that you have better subsequent nights' sleep. How about a mosquito net? It is a bit far but arranged nicely it can have that African chic look.
Just listened to "Amelia", beautifully sung, my favourite lines "..a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you"
mossies! urgh. are they the ones who do the tinny thin whine all night? Hate them and wabbies.
Sorry not been around much but Abigail's Party is demanding a lot of my time and cats sitting and job searching and photography. Hope to get back to normality and more blogging asap.
Clarity - the only thing about a mozzie net is that - with my vivid imagination - I would imagine them all queuing up to bit me when I emerged halfway through the night for a loo trip.
Glad you liked 'amelia' - the lyrics are Joni at her best (even at her 'worst' she is still brilliant though)
Phil - yes, that high-pitched whine is them :(
I wondered how you were getting on - hope the learning of the lines is coming along nicely.
I eat loads of Marmite and they seem to leave me alone.
They plague Sir P, (a jam eater) something chronic though.
I have a store cupboard full of the stuff...let me know if you need some,
GG
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