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| The joy of mosquito bites! |
The reason for the mosquito plague is the
massive amount of water that Tropical Storm Debby rained down on us not long
ago. Mosquitoes like standing water as a
venue for their egg laying. Even if it’s
dry, the mosquito eggs can sit around for months, then spring into life when
the rain comes.
By the way, for the linguists out there,
the shortened name for mosquitoes in England
tends to be “mozzies”, but in the USA they
are more commonly referred to as “skeeters”.
Anyway, I am bitten to hell.
A range of cures and reliefs have been
offered to me for mozzie bites, ranging from dabbing the bites with gin, to tea tree oil. The
alcoholic cure maybe sounds the slightly more appealing, but I am using
Cortizone
at present.
at present.
I am spraying myself with “Off!
”, when I go
out, a DEET spray, which the skeeters don’t like (at least in theory!).
”, when I go
out, a DEET spray, which the skeeters don’t like (at least in theory!).
The mosquitoes are worst in the morning and
at sunset. Unfortunately, at the end of
the last week, when I put the trash/rubbish out, the cat decided to make a dash
for freedom and explore the neighbourhood.
Pets aren’t supposed to roam around where we live, so normally the cat
spends its time shut inside, or out on the (mosquito-netted) porch. Anyway, I went after the cat and eventually
managed to retrieve it, but got bitten about a zillion times in the process.
We have mosquitoes in the UK, but
there aren’t a lot of them. There are
midges up in Scotland which are maybe just as bad, or worse in some respects, although
they don’t give you any tropical diseases!
The state bird of Florida.
ReplyDeleteThey have certainly been more prevalent recently.
DeleteAnd you seem to react to them pretty poorly! Most of us just get a bit of a bump, but you get teacup sized lumps on you! lol
ReplyDeleteThat is my body rejecting them! :-)
ReplyDeleteState bird up in Maine too - tho we got really lucky last week as there seemed to be hardly any in Bar Harbor. Plenty in Blue Hill tho' where my husband was :-(
ReplyDeleteSome of us just seem to react much worse to bites than others. We had to find a 24 hour chemist when my son got bitten by bugs in the UK a couple of years ago. He and I both react much worse than DH and DD do.
Love that picture of he giant skeeter! Did you take it?
How's your tooth BTW?
My mother has real problems with bites. I remember one time in Germany, her hand puffed up to about twice the size, and she had to go to a doc.
DeleteMy teeth aren't great. I've got an appointment with a dentist here at the end of the month. I have insurance but dentistry is still massively expensive here compared to what I paid in the UK. I've been tempted to go back to the UK for a month and get the work done there on the NHS - it sounds absurd, but it seems cheaper to fly somewhere else!
I remember when I thought I needed a root canal done at one point, my mother got the price list from her local dentist and for the same price as having a root canal done in the US I could have flown to the UK AND paid for the root canal to be done over there. Prices in the UK have gone up since then though, and my dentist over there no longer accepts NHS patients. (Not that I'm technically eligible for NHS treatment anyway after almost 27 years in the USA!)
ReplyDeleteToothpaste. For the bug bites. I mean, for your teeth, too, but they help with the skeeter bites:)
ReplyDeleteAnd that was not meant to imply anything about your teeth! Lol- I just realized that the comment above was about teeth and I was recommending toothpaste. Oy.
ReplyDelete