Life In a Hot House

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If you see me running up and down this little cul-de-sac of ours batting my head and screeching fit to burn it will be because a moth or twenty-five have taken refuge in my frizzy hair.
Blame da bungalow. It is bungalow’s fault. In fact me and this darn bungalow are at loggerheads because she is a magnet for all things creepy and crawly, and I am a lunatic in dire need of one of those special little hoovering up machines dedicated to eradicating life indoors of all things that frankly shouldn’t be setting up home.
Never, ever before have I experienced an insect invasion like the one currently taking place in this sprawling hothouse. For there’s the rub: the insects consider themselves invited because the house is so stuffy I run around opening the many windows the minute I fall out of bed and before I know it all the blue bottles that live on the pink plant in the front garden come dashing in demented with buzzy, window-bashing excitement, and the bee’s in the back-garden make a bee-line straight for my head.
And that’s not all. The bathroom is home to more spiders than the Natural History Museum. In the evenings I switch off the lights so as not to attract moths and before I know it said ENORMOUS black moths are having sense enough not to burn their pretty wings in the candlelight and instead of taking great delight in swooping past my nose and trying to crawl down my not insubstantial cleavage to eat my bra.
And the bedroom. Oh the bedroom is the very worst of it. You see the bedroom is home to a whole posse of INVISIBLE dragonflies. I say invisible because when I head to my room to start my evening absolutions, I like to conduct a spot-check for all things likely to trouble me in the small hours. Said spot-check involves flapping the duvet about and making Ste drag chairs into the room to climb up and give spiders lurking in corners their marching orders. Said spot-check NEVER reveals lurking dragonflies because when I get into bed and read my Kindle and rub lavender into my feet and generally do all the probably slightly ludicrous things I have to do to fight off insomnia, the dragonflies aren’t there. They AREN’T THERE. Oh no. The little blighters wait until it is pitch black and we are almost dropping off to sleep to start singing at the top of their dragon voices, bouncing off the walls and generally making more racket than anything so paper light should be capable of making.
So then I can’t sleep and I pop the light on and have a stern word with the tens of crawlies apparently having a disco and when they won’t listen, much to his chagrin, I make Ste get up and carry them out one by one: not because I am scared of them, but because I read too much trashy news and I have visions of them taking root in my ear, or heaven forbid my belly-button and sending me to itchy hell. Because these things happen don’t you know? And heavens, as if my ears aren’t troubled enough without a dragonfly family moving in…
But I am Alison. And let’s face it I once saw off a six-foot-four creepy crawly so I can do this! I can employ every insect fighting tactic in my vintage housekeeping book and make it clear to anything with wings or more than four legs that they are not welcome in my hot-house. I know some people who live in Australia and they got a magnetic fly screen installed on their window double glazing Melbourne. They said it works really well. It definitely sounds like something I need in my house. There are flies everywhere! I can literally sprinkle the kind of essential oils that get up insect’s noses around the place, burn citronella tea-lights here, there and everywhere and stuff a tumble-dryer sheet down my bra because apparently that will be just as effective as wearing head to toe insect repellent and will, of course, have me smelling as fresh as a basket of line-dried laundry. When the time comes and we’ve saved up enough cash. I think we’re going to end up moving out. I found some great properties in our area on sites similar to Barrie Real Estate. Which has had no issues with creepy crawlies. This means NO INSECTS! Would you believe it?!
Your time is up insects. I have reached the end of my creepy-crawly tether.