Jul 26th, 2019

Author: donich_admin

Another scary experience

I have to say that this has been the week for scary things. I went into our tractor shed to get the lawnmower out, and there was a wasps nest the size of my head in the corner. No idea where this came from as it wasn’t there when R mowed the lawn last week.

I’m not fond of wasps as one night when I lived in Livingston, I had to go out to find Tora late at night. I went into some bushes and all of a sudden I thought I had got into nettles. But suddenly the pain grew much much worse and I realized I had trodden on a wasps nest in a hollow log. By this time they had gone right into my trousers – I had to rip them off in the middle of the wood and shake them. Luckily there was no one about as it would have been an interesting explanation to give the police when I was arrested for indecent exposure. I think I was stung about 30 times, and the next day my feet were like balloons and I had to get hydro-cortisone cream on them to reduce the swelling.

So unfortunately today I just had to get rid of them. I put on thick trousers and jumper, gardening gloves, safety goggles, a midge net and a hat. Then I pushed the thing off the wall with a pole and sprayed lots of Raid over it. Literally hundreds of the little beasties poured out and chased me down the garden. I managed to escape with no stings due to all the protective clothing, but it was not a fun experience.

I don’t really like killing wildlife, but unfortunately this needed to be done so we can get our lawnmower out. I’ve a nasty feeling there might be another nest in there at the back but can’t really look until such time as the main activity has died down.

After I had done the deed I looked up a couple of websites and all the advice was “call the professionals”. People are such wimps these days, and I can’t help thinking that another facet of this advice is that the people giving this advice are the professionals and are trying to drum up business for themselves. Still, I suppose that in these troubled times you have do what you can to try to make money.

As an addendum to this – my treatment of the nest didn’t entirely work as there were still wasps about. So R very bravely went up there, put a brick on the nest and gave the roof an extra spray. I can only hope this has worked as the lawn really needs mowed.