Dateline: Cyprus, Thursday. Via email.
I've spent the first week of my holiday sitting outside trying to get bitten by a mosquito. No, it's not the sun going to my head, it's just that I've got this handy little gadget which is supposed to alleviate mozzie bites and being female and having spent £13 plus on it I want to make sure it works.
The reason I have the little gadget at all is because my younger daughter, who spent the previous two weeks here, kept ringing up with progressively more gory stories about plagues of mosquitos dashing out of ever bush, sand dune, tree and beach and honing in on her pale British skin with glee causing lumps the size of small hen's eggs (so she said). She added a lot more unpleasant details about the size and contents of the bites, but you don't want to know that.
Until a couple of years ago I've never had problems with insect bites but then I got bitten by mosquitos in Germany quite badly, so I didn't really want an itchy fortnight.
The pests are quite bad this year, due to more rain than usual, but the houses are equipped with screened windows and mosquito nets over the beds (I woke up the first night apparently having a fight with a big bride in a cathedral length veil) .
Anyway, I bought this little suction thing which, it claims, is used by intrepid explorers all over the world. It is heartening to think that today's equivalent of Sanders of the River goes up the Amazon armed with nothing more than a little green box containing a suction pump. The idea is that mosquitos (and here are more details about the dining habits of mozzies than you may really want to know) inject two substances into you when they bite. One is a local anasthaetic so that you don't feel them poking you with their probiscus or whatever it is. The other is an anti-coagulent, so that your blood runs freely and they don't get a lumpy supper.
It is one or the other of these substances, or sometimes both, which cause an allergic reaction, lumps the size of ostrich eggs if you are really unlucky, or just frantic itching and burning .
I gleaned this from my younger daughter, who is now a profound enemy of any insect beginning with an em, and has consequently followed the 'know your enemy in order to overcome him', mantra.
The little gadget, which my younger daughter hadn't brought with her although by now she's probably got one in every room in the house, works like a suction pump. You choose one of the four heads, stick it on a syringe and place the head over the bite, pulling up the plunger to create a vacuum and lo and behold after waiting a minute or so the vacuum draws out the two substances and you wipe them away. No itching or other reaction should be the end result.
Fine, in theory, but could I get the little blighters to bite so I could test it out? No I couldn't.
The children had already seized the gadget and were now covered in round red circles after trying it out on various parts of themselves, so it looked as if they were suffering from some kind of circular chicken pox. I tried to tempt the mozzies by shaking bushes, walking through the grass at night or sitting outside with tempting, but not tempting enough, bare arms. Every time I thought I heard a buzz it moved rapidly away from me.
The little green plastic box with its pump lies waiting, but so far unused on a bump. My only remaining thought is that I wouldn't like to meet the insect the largest of the four heads is intended for, something about the size of a vulture by the look of it. I'm bringing the gadget home, to lie in wait for horse flies in summer, which will, I'm sure, come up with the goods.
I suppose nobody really wants to know that the sky is blue, the mountains are covered with the most amazing array of wild flowers I have ever seen (including some which are familiar to us like cistus and cersis, big iris, orchids, wonderful euphoria in brilliant yellow and brilliant blue and purple vetch. ) Oh, and yes the sea is warm enough not to make getting into it an ordeal.
I always like to look at local papers in other countries and here in Cyprus there are several English language dailies and weeklies, including one in Limassol, which is the nearest city. I was looking through back copies and reading the letters, which are always good value, when I spotted one which certainly wouldn't have been considered for publication by our own dear Cornish Times.
It was from an irate Filipino lady who complained about the habits of, as she put it, 'elderly Cypriot men' who (and she was a little more explicit that the following) were flashing at her apparently every time she ventured out. She went on and on about the problem, so you got the impression that even a simple shopping trip was an ordeal as OAP locals sprang out from hiding places all along her route to show her things she really didn't want to see. She ended her letter by saying she was in future going to carry a knife on shopping trips and cut off offending bits if they were shown to her again. See what I mean? We don't get letters like this do we? even in the holiday season.
I was interested to see if the next week's issue contained any letters from offended local members of Age Concern, unlikely as it was in an English paper.
I also scanned the front page for any signs that impromptu amputations had taken place but all seemed quiet on this front.
Not surprisingly there were no 'disgusted of Nicosia' replies but there was a letter from another woman who also had the same problems, only hers involved males of all ages who again seemed to lay siege to her every outing.
My daughter and I, in the last week, have been shopping in supermarkets, local shops and stalls, walked through mountains, stopped in little villages and had coffee, wine and beer in small local tavernas. Everywhere we have been treated with smiling polite welcomes in the manner you come to expect in this country. Nowhere has there been the slightest sound of a descending zip from a pensioner's direction.
We don't know whether to be relieved or insulted.