Mosquito Mayhem

Mossies have always been a pest in Bodrum and I've learnt to cover up or retreat indoors at dusk to avoid them.  In the village we weren't too affected by the little blighters because the frogs in the pond, geckos in the house and bats swooping over the pool, kept numbers down to a manageable quantity.  So I've been surprised by the number of itchy lumps appearing over my body in the week since I came back from Scotland.  My husband is also uncharacteristically itching and scratching.  Something is definitely amiss.  I was watering the garden yesterday morning and felt a dart in my arm and caught sight of the perpetrator for the first time.  A tiny black and white striped mosquito, quite unlike our usual bigger brown variety.  A visit to google-land identified this varmint as an Asian Tiger Mosquito and the bad news is that they don't wait until dusk, they bite all the time. They are a recent introduction, thought to have come in with imports. So while our bats, geckos and frogs are taking five, these immigrants are drinking our blood.  It's a toss up which is the most unhealthy - slapping on DEET day and night or risking the long list of diseases these blood suckers carry.  I shall come back from my next trip to Scotland with a consignment of Avon's " Skin so Soft." The burley, tweed-togged gamekeepers up there all swear by it to protect them from the midges. The idea that under their kilts and plus-fours, those tartan lads have skin as soft as a baby's bottom cheers me up no end.