I DON’T know what it is about my blood, but mosquitos love it – never more so than during a recent holiday with my wife to the Italian island of Ischia.
It’s a beautiful island but the mozzies are monstrous. And, for some reason, they like to feast on me while leaving my wife relatively unscathed.
After 37 years of marriage, I suspect the only reason she takes me on holiday with her is so she can use me as mosquito bait. She knows that if I’m nearby, she’s more likely to get left alone. I’m like those sacrificial goats in Jurassic Park – she doesn’t tie me up, but I’m there to be chomped.
The Ischia mosquitos are not even ones you hear coming at you with a high-pitched screech in the night. These blighters are silent assassins, with a hunger for attacking my legs, ankles, and feet.
By the end of day one, my lower limbs were covered in angry bites that were screaming out to be scratched. There were bites on bites. No-one has ever been itchier in Ischia.
“Stop scratching them!” became a frequent cry from my wife, whether we were reading by the pool, having a sunset meal, or trying to settle down in bed. Easy for her to say as someone who isn’t the least bit attractive to a mosquito.
By day three, I’d had enough. I headed for the nearest pharmacy, joined the queue, and told the assistant: “I’m English and I desperately need some insect relief please.”
She looked at me, blankly, but I don’t speak any Italian, so I did my best mosquito impression. With the queue growing behind me, I flapped my arms, pointed my index finger out from the end of my nose to expertly illustrate a probiscis, and made a buzzing noise.
Despite these dramatic efforts, the assistant appeared none the wiser and continued to look at me as if I was some kind of mad foreigner. For all I know, that’s what she was calling me when she started babbling away in Italian while shrugging her shoulders.
As a 63-year-old grandad, I’m not as flexible as I used to be, but there was nothing else for it – I got my leg up on the counter, and pointed to the bites.
Remember Angela Rippon on Strictly Come Dancing? Well, my leg was a good few degrees higher, albeit not quite as shapely.
Anyway, it did the trick because the assistant finally legged it out the back and returned with both a deterrent spray, and a tube of cream to soothe the bites I’d already accumulated.
For the record, neither worked…and I also spent the rest of the holiday with a pulled thigh muscle.
