Enemy Number 1

Mosquitos - I have developed a hate for the small, flying, blood sucking critters that is bordering on pathological.

Mosquitos can be divided into two groups. The morning mosquitos that are small and don’t make that much noise and the evening ones which are large and make an intensely annoying shrill buzzing noise. Not that they don’t cross the boundaries of morning and evening but more often than not I can be seen chasing around the smaller ones before going to work and the larger ones after work.

I have a wonderful contraption which looks like a tennis racket which has an electric current running through it which kills them. On a nightly basis I come home from work and start tennis practice. The veranda looks a bit like a mosquito grave yard as I’m seen furiously swatting at them until I am satisfied I’ve killed enough for the evening and be quite often heard shouting to the rest of the them ‘yeah let that be a lesson to you’.

I can also blame mosquitos for the need to take anti malaria tablets which are not actually that pleasant. Apart from the dizziness and feeling like I am on a ship I also have visual disturbances which again aren’t great especially when you think something is flying towards your head. I have on a number of occasions startled people by crying out and ducking. I completely and utterly blame the malaria carrying horrors for having to take them and as I am seemingly quite tasty I have to.

The question I have to pose is why they bite people several times? Why not just the once? I woke up having obviously trapped a little darling in the net with me with no less than 6 bites around my left calf, which is I think is actually jolly unfair. If you must bite me just bite me once and have it over with.

One of my friends dared to broach the subject of how amazingly resilient they are especially with the number of blood borne diseases around – they have after all been around for millions of years, which was met with a little bit of resistance. Unfortunately the only argument I could come up with was along the lines of - but why have they survived they are horrid and no one likes them! Not my best argument I think you will agree!

Tennis anyone?