The first time I ever heard of ‘insect repellant’ was 35 years ago when Mel & I, as then two solitary, individual souls not yet joined by common mortgage nor joint account, went to Sri Lanka. It was exotic ‘back then’. Still pretty exotic today. And among the items on the ‘must take’ list was ‘insect repellant’. Which we bought. The ‘good stuff’ because Sri Lanka is tropical, or thereabouts, and so there’s more insects, they’re more bitey, more stingy, more toxic, bigger, badder, like motherfucker mosquitoes on fucking steroids the size of Jumbo Jets who go straight for YOUR JUGULAR! Or so we thought. Well, so Mel thought.

So we took our ‘Deet’ spray and doused liberally on exposed parts daily. And after about a week our plastic watch straps had melted, socks and trouser ends had holes in and bits of your limbs appeared withered. At which point I thought: how bad is an insect bite compared to the absolute horror that is Deet. What can that be doing to your skin? (We later learned its carcinogenic, possibly only if ya smoke it, but really, who fucking needs that??)

But then we’ve subsequently entered jungles and game reserves, rain forests and cloud forests, mountains and lakes. We’re even brave and adventurous enough to risk the midges of a summer in Scotland. And I never ‘repel’. Even though there’s loads of ‘Deet free’ shit now available. Because I don’t care. Mel does care. Deeply, truly, profoundly so she sprays before she goes into our lounge in December. I DON’T SPRAY. FULL STOP!

But yesterday we arrived at Fiordland. It’s amazing. Totally massive, uninhabitable, vast, desolate and magnificent. Fiords (or Fjords, if you’re more Scandy, bit of a dragon tattoo kind’a thing) which are 40 km long, with ‘arms’ going in all directions and mountains on every side of every inlet. It is special. You can only see it by helicopter or, as we chose, by boat. This place is so ‘out there’ that there is no phone signal nor wifis. And that’s the best bit of all really. Because even though it means I’m deprived of Lila for over a day, it is totally liberating.

But instead of WiFi they have sand flies. The local terror. Thousands of the fuckers. And they bite. So I used some local, ‘no Deet’ roll-on thing and its so good that I’ve been bitten to shit. And back. So I won’t bother with that again either.

If you could buy snake-repellent or life-insurance-salesman repellent, even religious-fanatic-repellent that were guaranteed to work, I’d be first in line, cash in hand. But insects? They fall into the category of: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And more itchy.

Happy New Years

A xxxx