Now, I know that insects are God’s Creatures Too and have every right to live on the same planet as I do, and I tend to shoo flies out of the house if I can rather than killing them (and keep a pot of basil on the kitchen window-ledge to put them off coming in), but I draw the line at them moving in with me. Ants for instance are fine in the lawn but out-of-place in the living-room…
This year so far I have had three queen wasps on successive days appearing in the bathroom; one was crawling across the floor towards me when I got out of the bath and I killed it by dropping a carefully selected book on it (a book with a plastic cover which would be easy to clean afterwards and which I happened to have about my person, as you do); one was buzzing against the window, and since it resisted death by dodging, it was given a dose of fly-spray and then flushed down the loo a couple of hours later; the third was dead in the bath the following day.
Meanwhile I had been finding weevils in my keyboard. Not every day, but several times over the past fortnight or so. I took them and released them into the wild (translated: caught them on a bit of paper and put them outside) but I was starting to get a little paranoid about it.
Today it was time to clean the cutlery-drainer beside the sink, and the tray under it which catches the drips and gets very dirty in the process and why I haven’t thrown it out I have no idea, and there were three dead weevils in the tray and nine on the sink-drainer bit underneath it.
This is getting beyond a joke!
I have frisked all the flour in the house and found no concealed weevils, and there are none in the oats nor the rice-sack nor anywhere I had assumed might be a Weevil Haven, so where the blazes are they coming from?
Never had weevils, but Stepdaughter had them on Ryvita (!)
I know
Check yer Crackers & anything which makes a ‘dry’ crumb or flake
Am hearing a lot of reports about queen wasps too - they used to come into the bathroom at Carinthia Towers via the air vent above the boiler , which is why there is fly spray in the bathroom.
As I am exceeding allergic to wasp stings, I will fire up my trusty Wasp-toaster & despatch any I see
Yep. Flour weevils a while ago (in paper pack rather than a box. I’m not sure if that’s relevant but MacDougal’s is a no-no now. I got a bit paranoid so looked around & they were in the Cornflakes. So they, the Special K & (saddest of all) a nearly full, huge, box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. (Sobs… )
They went without me even bothering get looking. The garden birds came from far & wide that day. In fact, it may have been my imagination but I seem to recall some sitting on the patio tapping their feet for a good few days following.
I once answered the door to a Jehova witness. I dragged a pair of jeans on & as I shooed the guy off felt an itch & it turned out 2 earwigs had been in them. Tricky varmints.
We also have silver-fish on the floor of the downstairs loo, but since I have never heard of them being malignant, they can stay for all of me. We had them in a mattress once, in my poverty-stricken student days, and that was harder to deal with mentally; on the one hand, the mattress was perfectly good and replacing it was not going to be easy, on the other hand… Luckily someone offered us a second-hand mattress from a good home, so we found a skip for the old one silverfish and all.
I once saw an earwig flying. Until that day I had never really believed that they could, any more than woodlice.
I’m sure I recall reading that the name came from the similarity in shape of their open wings to an ear. Have never seen one in flight to confirm or refute the claim, however.
I have the same problem as Fanta. I think everything is one of God!s creatures but I’m terrified of all insects! We had a wasp in the kitchen this week
So you’re not scared of gorillas, then? All helps to buiild a profile, that kind of thing.
The tuberculosis bacillum and all kinds of narsty viruses and the wotchemacallit jellyfish with the cripplingly agonising stings and the white shark and Japanese Knotweed and Devil’s Coachhorses and Graham Norton are all ‘God’s Creatures’ too. And? So allegedly am I. Not sure that gets us any further forward except wondering what the dear might have been on when creating some or all of the above. Watch out for thunderbolts.
not half as much as wot it would, them being shy beasts. And it would already be feeling a bit disoriented, what with being in your garden and all before meeting unnecessary Archers listeners.
I am beginning to feel awfully sorry for this gorilla, and I think you need to take your responsibilities to higher primates in your garden more seriously than evidently you do,
If I could remember how to spell it I would call you a flibbertigibbet, Oh, that’ll do. You get the gist.
You might be wondering how this gorilla comes to be your fault and responsibility.Keep wondering. The gorilla is yours for life. Try to treat it with due consideration, please.
Ah, it’s the nice new poster with the gorilla.
Your dog and cat should be fine, your new best friend being civilised and mainly vegetarian (ants and grubs and termites find them less civilised, but still). Don’t start keeping chimps, though - those buggers would barbecue the dog soon as look at it, and the cat, if they could catch it.
Jade, I don’t think I said ‘welcome’ - but you are. And of course this dratted gorilla you are saddled with. One could gracefully let it drop, but gorillas are heavy and it might get hurt… You could get him adopted out, you know. Probably best all round
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