Sacha wrote:
Sorry, could easily have been someone else off here. Or you could be going
as daft as me. :-P
I have age as my excuse - you don't! ;-))

I have age as my excuse too! It just ... may not be quite such a credible
excuse. :-(
You know, my memory is just about good enough to remember when I used to not
have a crap memory. I suspect "early 2003". Either before the first time I
got pregnant, or before I met Nick's mum for the first time. Take your
pick, but guess who I blame!

Sacha wrote:
Speaking as a mother in law......yah, boo, sucks. Usually, my memory

:-)

for plant names is very good and my memory for people names is so
embarrassingly bad that I must appar very rude sometimes.

I am /awful/ with both faces and names. And heaven help me if I see someone
out of context! One day someone said good morning to me at the station on
the way to work, and it took me 2 days before I realised it was the lady
from the library who was reading to Daniel once a week!

Unfortunately my husband is just as bad as me so we can't prompt each
other.

One great thing about Nick, he works as an external memory card which holds
'people' information.

This sounds very much like what happened to me yesterday. I was clearing up in the border, having sprayed insect repellent (with neem oil) on my arms and legs. Despite that (and despite avoiding the pond area, bebcause I am a mozzie magnet) I was bitten three times — on each ankle, on my midriff and on my face — by what appeared to be small, darkish-coloured bug-like insects, which drew blood. They were definitely not mosquitos or horseflies. I got the impression they bit when disturbed by my removing their home to be composted.

The bites are extremely painful, despite hydrocortisone cream, antihistamine tablets, ice and co-codamol. I too would very much like to know what infliected them

If I am to finish what I started, I will need to wear more clothing and stronger insect repellent, and will probably spray some insecticide on that part of the border a couple of hours beforehand.

I should have said I was bitten four times!

Also, I am in London. I don’t know whether the Blandford fly is a problem here.

Jetdoc alid wrote:
This sounds very much like what happened to me yesterday. I was clearing
up in the border, having sprayed insect repellent (with neem oil) on my

Ugh, Nick bought neem oil recently, and I have to say I'd rather suffer the
bites than have to smell that stuff again. (certainly not smell /of/ that
stuff!)

on my midriff and on my face ? by what appeared to be small,
darkish-coloured bug-like insects, which drew blood. They were
definitely not mosquitos or horseflies. I got the impression they bit
when disturbed by my removing their home to be composted.

That sounds like the things.

The bites are extremely painful, despite hydrocortisone cream,
antihistamine tablets, ice and co-codamol. I too would very much like to
know what infliected them

I caught them quite early and each time it seemed to be starting to swell I
squeezed out the nasty central goop stuff. This probably isn't to be
advised as it's not exactly pain free, and probably begging to introduce
infections, but after the last incident where I had a hugely swollen hand
for nearly a week, and a lot of pain, it seemed a plan. 1 bedtime anti-
histamine and a next morning spray of some insect soothing thing Nick had (I
can find out what it is ifyou're interested) and the whole thing had pretty
much vanished within 3 days, which was a lot better than I'd expected.

If I am to finish what I started, I will need to wear more clothing and
stronger insect repellent, and will probably spray some insecticide on
that part of the border a couple of hours beforehand.

I suspect a key point is to make sure you are out of there before twilight
kicks in. Which isn't so bad right now, but when the daytimes are full of
blazing baking sunlight, it does shorten the feasible working hours a
little, unfortunately.

On 4 Aug 2010 14:39:56 GMT, wrote:

Jetdoc alid wrote:
This sounds very much like what happened to me yesterday. I was clearing
up in the border, having sprayed insect repellent (with neem oil) on my

Ugh, Nick bought neem oil recently, and I have to say I'd rather suffer the
bites than have to smell that stuff again. (certainly not smell /of/ that
stuff!)

on my midriff and on my face ? by what appeared to be small,
darkish-coloured bug-like insects, which drew blood. They were
definitely not mosquitos or horseflies. I got the impression they bit
when disturbed by my removing their home to be composted.

That sounds like the things.

The bites are extremely painful, despite hydrocortisone cream,
antihistamine tablets, ice and co-codamol. I too would very much like to
know what infliected them

I caught them quite early and each time it seemed to be starting to swell I
squeezed out the nasty central goop stuff. This probably isn't to be
advised as it's not exactly pain free, and probably begging to introduce
infections, but after the last incident where I had a hugely swollen hand
for nearly a week, and a lot of pain, it seemed a plan. 1 bedtime anti-
histamine and a next morning spray of some insect soothing thing Nick had (I
can find out what it is ifyou're interested) and the whole thing had pretty
much vanished within 3 days, which was a lot better than I'd expected.

If I am to finish what I started, I will need to wear more clothing and
stronger insect repellent, and will probably spray some insecticide on
that part of the border a couple of hours beforehand.

I suspect a key point is to make sure you are out of there before twilight
kicks in. Which isn't so bad right now, but when the daytimes are full of
blazing baking sunlight, it does shorten the feasible working hours a
little, unfortunately.

Just wondering, as the ID still seems elusive, whether this is a
candidate. I'd never heard of them until I came across this article by
accident whilst reading up on beneficial insects attracted by
different plants.

http://www.bing.com/reference/semhtm...ute+pirate+bug

There's a lot of other pics on the right of the page.

wrote:
for nearly a week, and a lot of pain, it seemed a plan. 1 bedtime anti-
histamine and a next morning spray of some insect soothing thing Nick had (I
can find out what it is ifyou're interested)

Turns out the inset soothing spray thing was simply "Wilko insect bite
soothing spray" (with witch hazel and lemon tea tree)