Just something overheard

Years ago the village I lived in then had a village carnival day. The Methodist chapel opened for lunches so we decided to have a salad. I was about to start eating when a piece of lettuce literally walked off my plate. On further investigation I could see that it was covering a caterpillar and,even worse, most of the rest of the lettuce was infested with little insects. Needless to say I didn't eat the meal.I think the volunteers who had prepared it were all very elderly and, sadly, probably had problems with their eyesight. As it was for charity I did complain but went home and had a sandwich!

Now I know why I really don't like insects apart from bees and ladybirds. When I was in my teens I went to the cinema and was eating a Flake. Some dropped on my top which I ate, only to find it was a spider. I'd left some legs behind. (Shudder). I have been bitten by a mouse which I was trying to rescue, had to have tetanus jab and antibiotics, but luckily not been bitten by a spider or earwig. (Yet!) Ooh don't like figs.

I was on holiday in France and had come back to my tent to get changed after swimming. I pulled on a dress with shirring elastic around the top only to discover after I had been stung 3 times by a wasp that there was a wasp stuck in there. I don’t think I have ever managed to get an item of clothing off in such a short time.

If anyone had walked past me they would have seen a very interesting sight. My DH laughed so much at the sight.

When we were kids me&my friends used to play with the 'woolly boys' by letting them crawl over our hands, it tickled.they looked cuter than other insects, but i guess they were just caterpillars with furry coats on? Wouldn't do it now though..cant imagine kids doing that these days

Well, MissAdventure, just read the link that's me definitely off figs!!!

Not a big fig eater tbf, but used to occasionally eat a dried fig or fig rolls, not sure i fancy them now though...

Raineagaine
That's really made me laugh, the thought of a long train journey with a known cockroach in your tights!!

I planted two apple trees in the garden of my new house. When the first crop came 6yr old son grabbed an apple and bit into it only to find a maggot. He hasn’t eaten apples since.

I don’t often post on here, but couldn’t resist adding two more earwig stories.

As a student I worked in an old Victorian asylum during the summer break. In those days (early ‘70s) it was still in use as a large mental hospital and my job title was ‘kitchenmaid’, which, as you can probably tell was not so much at the bottom of the career tree as in its roots. I could tell many tales of the cavernous kitchen with its enormous 100 year old oven set into the wall, but to keep to the point..... One morning I arrived to find a black stripe two feet wide round the bottom of all the walls. It was made up of millions of cockroaches, many still alive and wriggling. The company that had the contract for dealing with infestations came round every month and sprayed in the night. Guess whose job it was to sweep them up and dispose of them? The trick was to keep them on their backs, otherwise you stood no chance. The next summer I worked in the same hospital, but as a nursing assistant.

Soon after that, I married and we moved to live with my parents in law while looking for a home of our own. I had a long train journey to work, so I got up before anyone else, washed quietly and dressed in the dark, so as not to disturb the others. Waiting on the platform in the weak October dawn light I became aware of something behind my knee, inside my tights, and felt a smooth lump. It was, of course, a cockroach; tights seem to hold a fascination for them! Its position made it hard to see and even harder to deal with on the country platform with no buildings, or on the small train with no toilet. I tried surreptitiously (!) working it down to my toes and making a hole in the tights, reaching down from the waist to pull it out and just plain squashing it. Nothing worked, and besides the schoolboy sitting opposite started giving me very funny looks. It made for a very tense journey, as the cockroach was definitely alive and kicking. Once I reached my destination I removed it in the Ladies, but nowadays, since I have less shame, I might have said to the other passengers ’excuse me, I just need to get rid of this earwig’ and carried on. The boy would probably have been fascinated to see such an ‘absolute earwig’!

I once had a green caterpillar in my knickers???? My husband and I were at a music festival and it was so cold I added more clothes on top of my pjs(which had been in my sleeping bag). Next morning I pulled pjs AND jogging bottoms down with my knickers, all in one action and there was a caterpillar. I screamed, hubby scooped up said caterpillar and threw it outside. MY HERO! Then I found a baby one in my sleeping bag.

Looked up about figs as I love fresh figs and they are beneficial to health, and if you read the following there is nothing to worry about as they do a lot of good in moderation if fresh not dried.
:So yes, there is at least one dead wasp inside the figs that we like to eat.

Don't worry! We don't end up chomping on wasp exoskeleton. The figs produce ficin, a special enzyme that breaks down the insect's body into proteins that get absorbed by the plant. So the crunches you feel when you are chewing a fig are simply the seeds, not sacrificial wasps.

I hate creepy crawlies. I really don't want to read this thread any more but just can't tear myself away. It's like watching a horror movie from behind the sofa! We do go blackberrying in late summer. I always rinse the berries in copious bowls of salt water before using them and watch in horror as all the little mini bugs come out.

It's always around June, sometimes in May and July that the earwigs are out. If you go out with a torch when its dark you will see them. They come out of their crevices to eat plants and if dead each other. You can catch them by picking them off, putting an upturned plant pot filled with straw/hay on a stick or rolled up card/newspaper near your plants. Keep windows closed when it gets dark. The males (big ones)have curly pincers on their bums and the females (slightly smaller) straight pincers. This year I've found loads and loads. So, its a good year for them. Good news is that by the end of July they have usually gone dormant. Earwigs by the way can jump downwards off the plants especially when a light is shone on them and they have small wings but they don't use them much. Once July has passed it is usually safe to open windows at night again. Hope this helps.

I am fine with spiders - I can pick them up gently no problem
(OK it did take an Neuro Linguistic Programming course years ago to cure me of my terror!!)
But earwigs freak me out. They look evil! I'm sure the do no harm but they just look as if they might enjoy scaring you.
Luckily I rarely see them apart from in the garden hiding in flowers.

When I put my rotary dryer up, earwigs often fall out of the round bit so I always try to get OH to do it for me.

I'm just off to remove figs from my supermarket delivery! I normally put them on my cereal in the morning.

For my then 7 year old son. It was the slug that'd found its way into his trainer overnight. His poor little face as it squished underfoot. ?

I've brought gladioli into the house only to find ants pouring out!

Do you think that earwig came from M&S?

Absolutely yuck

Worst was eating a cherry that had no stalk and finding a strange set of textures, spat it out to find maggots. Never buy stemless cherries.

Opened a pea pod - love raw peas - to find small maggot.

Woke up to find something like small mass of hair in my mouth, I think it was one of those fine-legged spiders.

Bit into some broccoli and it was crunchy, strange broccoli ;)

Thank goodness I don't like figs.

Don't touch anything containing cochineal E120, not one for eating or plastering beetle blood in or on myself. Also don't eat offal, I hear Hugh mentioning how people don't eat it because they've never tasted it, nope, it's the texture and the tubes that put me off

Absolutely yuck.

My Dad also grew lots of flowers and I can remember as a child shaking out the dahlias and chrysants as they were always full of earwigs. Can't say I 've seen for years but haven't been looking for the absolute variety!!

Annesixty, your tint green caterpillar in the lettuce took me back to my first day at school over seventy years ago.
School lunch was ham salad ( I've never eaten meat) and there, on the lettuce was a tiny green caterpillar waving at me. I called the teacher who peered intently at it and told me there was nothing there and to eat up my lunch.
I was allowed to leave the ham though after she remembered that my mother had told her about the meat.
The remaining lunch wasn't very satisfying so the stodgy pudding was extra welcome.

“Absolute” ?????

My dad grew beautiful flowers and often picked a bunch for mum to put in a vase in the house.
I love flowers, but the two types that I wouldn’t go near were Dahlias and Sweet Williams’. Pretty, yes, but always full of
“absolute earwigs” . I always called them eerywigs as a child, didn’t know there wasn’t a y).

what is a non absolute earwig..

just asking

I don`t care for any insects, creepy crawly

I remember an absolute Earwig infestation in our Music room at school! Ohh they gave me the absolute willies!

But still, worst insect encounter has to be going to bite an apple and a wasp flew in my mouth and stung the back of my throat. I had never been a llergic however must have been because of a sensitive area, but my throat started to close up, luckily my son in law is a paramedic and was round at the time and had his big blue box with him so managed to give me an injection to stop the swelling, but still!
Terrifying!
Love the 'absolute earwig' story though,my gc are always saying if their parents embarrass them, that its 'Absolute Cringe!' When I explain the word cringeworthy, they absolute cringe a little more lol.