The icy, deep snow Winter, followed by the steady downpour for the whole of Spring and now temperatures in the high thirties under a brazen sun is hatching things not seen since dinosaurs walked. They must have been sitting in their crysallises for ever until they thought they were in with only one more chance when the heat came.
They are so variously horrible but all are large - as big as the palm of a man's hand or bigger, with hooks, or eyes on stalks, or digger truck attachments to the jaw big enough to shift rocks. They come armour-plated, some segmented, some writhing, others going like the clappers across polished floors (a particularly nasty effect) and some whose feet click as they crawl along very slowly. Worst of all, some of them have wings and fly towards the lights at night.
In the beginning I would get one of the men and a boot would come down so fast they didn't stand a chance but left a nasty mess and the sound lingered in the ears. So I got out the wasp nest spray but couldn't do it when what I was pretty sure must be a giant scorpion was followed by two little ones. It is worrying as well that they must be quite rare, these different creatures, even if I have no idea what they are. The answer for now is strategically placed, long-handled dustpans and brush and flinging them (the creatures, though the dustpans have been flung more than once) over the edge of the garden; but my courage is going to give out soon.
Why do they inspire such atavistic fear? This morning at first light I saw two hares playing in the meadow on the edge of the woods. I thought them utterly beautiful and stood still as still until they saw me and lolloped off towards the fountain and the glades above it. They are much bigger than even the largest, most fantastical creatures, yet looking at them I was enchanted.
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14 comments:
You blog beautifully!
Those first two paragraphs were obviously deeply felt, HG. I don't know where you are, but it is the same here in western Toscana.
My lady shrieks and yelps, and her cousin, who next week visits from London, will be worse. Some of the creatures look formidable (our vet says of our dog: Protect him as if you are in the tropics) and I generally put those in a plastic box to chuck'em outside. Others I just catch with my hands and scoop them out in one movement.
It's the snakes which bother me most. They all seem to be biters and some are poisonous. Last year, two identical heads reared out of a bush and regarded me balefully. European whip snake, but I cannot decide whether it was two coiled together to mate, or one snake with two heads: that happens.
All the more reason to move to Ireland...
http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?id=532972
Why were you not scared? Simple conditioning - bugs bite, bunnies don't.
Elby, that looks like a wendy house- a dark, damp one! It hasn't even got a chimney.
The story of the two-headed whip snake made me shiver, though last week I was not at all un-nerved to watch an adder basking on the compost bin in my friend's garden.
Yes, HG, but it has an acre and a quarter and a polytunnel and is in an exquisite part of West Cork!
Adders are very beautiful. Saw one a couple of years ago in the Mendips, curled up in the warmth of the sun. And as for hares - I wish I saw them more often, as they are indeed magical.
Clearly HG you have not been properly educated see here :-)
"Sally-Ann Spence of Minibeast Mayhem provides educational fun with invertebrates and brings the extraordinary life in the undergrowth to meet you face to face!"....
Yuk! Ma Quango lives in the rainforest. The beauty is rather offset by the oppressive heat and the armoured,poisonous centipedes.
It took ages before the penny dropped and I realised that you were speaking figuratively about the Spanish footballers.
Bill,
One of Lilith's great-aunts had a ranch in the Guyanan rain forest. It is mentioned in one of Waugh's travel books - which I had read long before meeting Lilith, and recalled immediately she mentioned it.
Well..I say rainforest, just to annoy her. Its actually one of the Caribbean Leeward islands.
Still, nearest non-island landfall is Venezuela. And the hurricanes frequently whip across the whole place and all the animals and insects are poisonous or bite. Or both.
Knew I shouldn't click on that L. (and Elby you cannot seriously want to take Lilith to live in a large roof with almost no house under it). I don't mind snakes, Elby, they don't come in, and outside it's live and let live - except for the hares who will probably get it in October and we'll eat pappardelle alla lepre (but their young will be left for next year; very eco-conscious hunters here - they're mostly the men who help over the year so they know where everybody is, including us, and don't shoot just for the kill.)
It is the inside-outside thingy, Nomad, that governs a cautious 'good day', or a shriek and a dustpan and brush (or the boot). Outside stuff indoors offends a profound sense of order I suspect - otherwise I'm merely neurotic, which I wouldn't want to be.
And I may have wanted to win, Dearieme, but I can't claim such subtlety of imagery, despite Calfy's kindness.
Rain forests, Mr Q, drop huge leeches onto unwary passers by. You know that because you'll have incredible detail of the Asian wwII theatres at your fingertips. (One of my anthropology professors was Edmund Leach, who fought the Japanese in Burma, raising a guerrilla army among the Shans; so I've heard about rainforests though would never want to go to one.)
I'm on a hill top south of Florence, Jeff, with temperatures that belong in the tropics though sans dog. There are snakes, they can be poisonous but they are all beautiful and, sensibly, live in the woods, so that's all right.
About thirty years ago we had a three week holiday on a hill top south of Florence. We talk of it still. Bloody marvellous.
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