The humidity broke yesterday afternoon, right after I'd sweated my way through pruning overgrown shrubs and roses, and right after a sudden thunderstorm cracked open the sky and deluged us with cool cool rain. Like any summer storm it came and went within an hour, such that by evening we were sitting on the back porch counting the backyard butterflies. It was then a neighbour strolled into the yard for a chit chat. She was thanking my wife for once again mowing the strip of lawn between her front drive and wherever our property line runs. She struggles some days to mow the lawn so we simply oblige by ignoring whatever patch of grass is whose, what's my weeds are your weeds and vice versa, and cut it all no problem. Anyway she was thankful and we said not to worry. By way of thanks she gave my wife a little pump bottle of bug spray she'd bought at a lavender farm near here. (They also make wine, but we were both too shy to point out the benefits of grape juice over bug juice). After our friendly neighbour left we decided to try out the new product. Actually, I wasn't all that keen but she insisted. There were no ingredients listed at all. None whatsoever. It smelled of a faintly familiar odour we couldn't quite put our finger on. Tea tree oil and lemon balm? She liked it but I wasn't a fan of smelling like a bath boutique. It was then she brought out the cavalry, being a large scented candle in the shape of Goddess Diana's bust. (Her head, not, you know.) Things were getting rather la-di-da lovely on our back porch, she sipping white wine and me sipping black tea, she admiring the dainty perfume and me wiping my smoke filled eyes. And then the mosquitoes showed up to the porch party. After nearly a dozen slaps to myself I called the whole thing off. It was just in time too, before I was to be treated to a pedicure. She still insists her scented attack on nature works just fine, there were no bugs bugging her, but me I'm not so sure. I'll stick to Picaridin. I won't smell pretty but it works.
