Stung

This is what happens when cats swat insects that sting.

Poor Jules, he never learns.

I suspect he must have decided to play with a wasp. If it had been a hornet the effect of its sting would have been far worse I fear.

Every summer we encounter hornets here. They tend to build their nest in the hollow oak tree opposite the house, and head unerringly for the lights once darkness descends.

On one occasion we had two or three circling the lightbulb on the landing and I was too scared to go past them to the bedroom. I slept in the living room, big wuss that I am. And I am right to be wary. Hornets are enormous and menacing with a subsonic rumble that makes bumble bees sound like Joe Pasquale on helium. Many people will tell you that they are less aggressive than wasps, and unlikely to sting, but I am not prepared to give them the opportunity. I avoid them rather than trying to kill them. They are tough creatures and no matter how much you blast them with chemical spray they will not fall down. When they get zapped by the electric bug killer they sizzle and spark and refuse to expire for a good half hour.

One memorable night I went up to bed, snuggled up under the duvet and fell asleep. An hour or so later my husband came upstairs to join me. Time passed, all was snoozy and fine, and then suddenly:

"AAAAAARGH! Oh great buggery FUCK! OW!"

I sat bolt upright in bed, fumbling for the light, as my husband continued to howl anguished obscenities while flailing around the bedroom.

His upper thigh was reddening and swelling rapidly as the culprit crawled sluggishly out from under the duvet. Somehow a hornet had got into the bedding at some earlier point in the evening and I had been sleeping with it in blissful oblivion until my husband had got into bed and disturbed it. Unfortunate as it was for Bert to be stung on the upper thigh he considered himself miraculously lucky not to have been stung any higher up. Though he was saddened at missing out on the opportunity to give the old "take away the pain and leave the swelling" joke a bit of an airing. Sadly, or thankfully, depending on your point of view, I have no photo to illustrate his swollen appendage, but it was impressive. And I am henceforth wary of hornets and check the bed carefully before retiring, if I've had the windows open.

The Cow Whisperer

I stood at the gates, trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. I’d driven up to the entrance to unlock the gates and had heard something new and interesting. Ah! There!

Peering over the hedge I could see the Farmer on his quad bike, attempting to round up his herd of cows. He was not doing terribly well. The cows were forming breakaway groups and scattering to all four corners of the meadow, instead of going through the gate into the next field as intended.

“You fucking bastard cows!”

My grin broadened. The Farmer was entirely oblivious to me, his attention focussed on his unruly herd.

“Fucking move. MOVE! You fucking, fucking bastards!”

Reluctantly I returned to my car and continued on my way, much as I would have enjoyed watching and listening to more.

Later that day I encountered the Farmer down at the house. “Hello!” I beamed. “I heard you earlier, moving your cows!”

He laughed. “Ah, yes, then you would have heard me cow whispering.”

“Cow whispering,” I repeated, delighted.

“It’s an art,” he affirmed.

“Well, the school group I was in charge of was really impressed.”

There was a moment, just a moment, when he thought this may have been true. Then he saw my grin and knew I was just teasing. Still, I missed a trick there. It would have been so much fun to fake a child’s drawing of the Farmer on his quad bike, with some lovely accompanying text in clumsy lettering, saying “we did go to the farm and we did see ducks and lambs and trees and flowers and fucking bastard cows”.