I'm having a bad summer with insects. Mosquitoes were my big problem when we moved to Italy. They zeroed in on me like flies around yesterday's fish and left my husband to sleep, unblemished and in peace. I've had mosquito bites that ended up the size of Vesuvius. But then something changed. Maybe I grew cannier, maybe I just stopped tasting as good. The mozzers mainly quit bothering me, and if occasionally they did, the bite was a mere nothing.
I even stopped burning citronella candles, for which certain members of the household gave thanks.

Now suddenly the mosquitoes have rediscovered me. They want me so much they have fought their way through screens, nets and skin cream to get at me. And not only that. They passed along word of my desirability to other insects. I got a wasp sting, and that hurt like a real SOB.

Well, tomorrow we head to the mountains to see whether the roof of our house is still visible above the uncut grass. No mosquitoes up there. Only wild boar, who really don't bother you unless you try to stop them stealing your onions. And a pathetic local insect called a mud-dauber which looks like two hornets stuck together. They don't sting. Actually, it takes them all their time to get air-borne. But they do lay their eggs in spooky looking mud nests that could give a person nightmares. You could imagine a man in a white coat saying, 'It seems to contain some kind of life form. But not life as we know it.'

Oh yes, and there are snakes. Mr Fitzpatrick says there are no snakes.
But men always say that.