Auckland has been disgustingly hot and humid this week – which equals bad sleep and mosquitos. The damp means they’ve been breeding like crazy, but you HAVE to leave the windows open at night because it’s so roasting – which means the little buggers waft in at all hours and bite you. But lying awake at 4am, listening to that torturous whine drift around the, I’ve come up with a desperate trick to kill them.
It’s called the face trap. What you do is tuck the sheets up round your chin so that the only thing exposed is your head. Next, concentrate on making your face seem as delicious as possible (consider huffing little puffs of breath, as the plume of CO2 will be like that irresistible smell in cartoons where they cool pies on windowsills). Soon the mozzies will be drawn in, so keep still…
…keep veeeeeery still. Let the whine reach a crescendo, until, at the moment it stops – WHAM – you whack yourself in the face as fast as you can with both palms.
Hear any more buzzing? Didn’t think so. Now go to sleep knowing nothing will be nibbling you in the night – though you have to remember to pick off the dead insect in the morning, otherwise you look like a toddler ‘s been scribbling on your face.
Anyway, the weather system causing all the heat and humidity this summer in New Zealand is called ‘La Nina’ – it’s know to bring warm moist air in from the east. And just this morning, two different hard-hitting NZ news outlets have run La Nina stories, blaming the system for, respectively, more burglaries (windows open at night) and dead penguins (calm weather = not enough stirring up of nutrients = fewer fish = dead penguins = PUBLIC INFORMATION KLAXON, LEAVE THEM TO DIE PEOPLE IT’S NATURE’S WAY).
Me I’d just like someone to put to rest the rumour that La Nina was named after a woman from Brazil who was incredibly hot, but cried lots (fun fact: apparently both she and the girl from Ipanema dated the father of Mickey Rourke’s butt double in Wild Orchid – amazing!)
Mostly though, I’d like to know how to kill all the millions of ‘scusting mosquito larvae that appear in the rain water which brims in every pot or bucket that’s left out. I was well impressed by a 200 litre rain barrel that my friend Richard set up this week – his plan is to collect water off his roof and put it on the garden (them dry times are surely coming) – and I’m keen for the same, but less enthused at the thought of all the midnight face-smacking it would entail. Half a cup of potassium cyanide stirred in would surely do the trick, but might be less good for the garden.
Thoughts?
Oh yeah – and merry Christmas!
