Just something overheard

Nothing will ever put me off fresh figs, but I'm slightly off strawberries at the moment since I cut into one the other day & out popped a woodlouse....

I mowed the lawn early last year on a fine spring day. Trainers and shorts on happily going about the garden. As soon as I finished I regretted not wearing something that covered my legs. I had 15 huge red swellings on my legs. Yes ’absoloute’ horse-fly bites. Three lots of antibiotic and much pain and swelling later I now just have 15 small round scars.

I think though, treading on a slug is worse than above. Especially when bare foot. ?

Not food - but I was about to wipe my bottom sitting on the loo recently when I noticed a large bulbous spider sitting between 2 sheets.... sorry animal lovers but I squashed it straight away - and got fresh loo paper ...I now check carefully before ....!!!

When I was 12 I went camping with the guides. I was asked to wash the lettuce for lunch. I had no idea how to do this so I held the whole lettuce under the tap for a few seconds. When the salad was served everyone started screaming that there were ear wigs on their plates! Along with "who washed the lettuce"? I kept my head down and said nothing.

Has anyone else had a creature living in their body? Now that’s a horror! I’ve told it elsewhere on GN but you can hear it again.

When we lived abroad I had what seemed like a bite on my leg. It wasn’t particularly itchy but after a few days it started to go nasty, like it was infected or something. I bathed it a few times in disinfectant and then one evening as I peered at it, something waved back at me! ????? It was a botfly larva! ????

I screeched the house down and Dh nearly broke his neck scrambling out of the bath to see what on Earth was wrong. I managed to squeeze the little b*stard out of my leg but it left a hole the size of a volcanic crater! I was so scared of it that I sellotaped it to a piece of card to stop it reinvading me during the night.

I did enjoy living abroad but bl**dy hell, it had its moments with creepy crawlies. ????

When i was young we always had to check washed socks etc straight off the line because there often were earwigs in them. Hasnt happened for years though, but might start checking , just in case.

My father was very proud of his vegetables and though he commuted to London every day, at weekends he went as near “back to the land” as he could. He went through a phase of declaring that it wasn’t really necessary to wash lettuce because he “knew where it had come from” and “a bit of dirt is good for you”.
The day I found a live earthworm on my plate, I told him I was going on salad strike unless we took lettuce-washing seriously.

The only thing I can remember about earwigs was some years ago I cut some roses for the vase and laid them on the worktop and one crawled out of two of the roses.
Another thing that happened over 40 years ago,i was having a lie in on a Sunday morning and it felt like the hairs on my leg was standing up,i pulled the covers off and a great big spider was crawling up my leg,i've never shot out of bed so quickly as I did that day.

Aren't those unexpected moments lovely when a poster accidentally gets on the wrong thread and posts something completely different from the topic of the thread. Thank you greyjoy, that made me laugh - as did the thought that your post should not distract from the very important issue we were discussing of earwigs, creepy crawlies in general, and encounters with.

My son's partner saw me nonchalantly picking up a huge spider in our living room and depositing it in the garden. "Aren't you worried it will bite? she said. "Spiders don't bite", says I with an air of quiet confidence. She assured me they did. Keen to disabuse her of this notion, I headed for the computer. Indeed, they do bite, and some can give significant bites. I have obviously been very lucky but won't push my luck from now on!

SueDonim

What is the truth about figs? ?. Not that I like them.

I got bitten by an earwig once. I put on a Marigold to do some hand washing (as you did in the 70’s with your preshuss newborn ) and felt a piercing pain in my little finger!

I ripped off the glove and a ruddy great earwig fell out. I’ve never forgiven it.

Yes, me too. Had one inside a shoe years ago and got a really nasty nip on my toe! Hideous looking creatures that move much too fast ?

I really really hope that some of these horror stories are written by gransnetters who live in slightly more exotic climates than the north west of England and that we are safe from such nightmares up here!!!

My spider bite was in the north of Scotland.
Soz.

I need to learn to type too. In my last post I meant to say "as it was for charity I didn't complain" not that I did.

I feel exactly the same as other posters - revulsion at most invertebrates and I take precautions against nasty surprises e.g. shaking out shoes etc especially if I haven't worn them for a long time.
BUT, I now feel guilty if I kill any of the little lovelies because they are the basis of the food chain and one of the main reasons why there are fewer birds these days is because we wage war on insects in our gardens. Killing off slugs and snails depletes the hedgehog and thrush populations. So we really do have to question how we deal with these essential creatures.
I really wish I didn't find them so scary!

Pulled out my retractable clothes line a few weeks ago and out fell hundreds of absolute earwigs, absolutely yuk.

FarNorth a spider bite in the north of Scotland, ouch, how painful

I haven't seen an absolute earwig for quite a while now.

What's the betting some march into the house tomorrow?

morelikeit I have been known to put them on the bird table, sorry but I have to euthanise them first otherwise they'd go back to munching the lettuce.

I was having a perfect time... I was playing an old video game...

Suddenly I see 'something' crawling across the floor...

I am thinking, "It cannot be... Not after this earlier conversation/discussion..." But yes, it was an "absolute earwig".

My story gets worse because I was barefoot and dared not to stomp 'it' so I used the only 'weapon' I had available...

And this is why there is smeared bug on the floor and the bottom of my wine glass...

Went to a “do” and were served a meal. A guest on our table shrieked as she found half a wasp in her meal. Where was the other half. In general these were not good meals andI whispered to my husband I expect the pudding will be that tinned fruit salad . It was. Job not to laugh.

Haven't seen many earwigs recently, absolute or otherwise, until this week at our caravan in Devon, lots of little ones scuttling about on the waste water tank but I'm not bothered about scuttly sort of bugs. Slugs and snails on the other hand, I can't abide, and any of these found in my garden get such impressive flying lessons they should apply to NASA as a career move.
However, I think my most entertaining moment in the last few months was watching my other half's antics, after he'd stepped on a slug in his bare feet, which had somehow found its way indoors - very impressive moves by my old man!

When we lived in Naxos Greece, I once sat on a wall to adjust my sandal and felt something bite me on the bum and I shot in the air. It was dark and we couldn't see anything so my husband took a picture of where I'd been sitting hoping the flash would illuminate the area. When I got home he inspected the offending buttock and said there was nothing there and I must of just sat on a sharp stone. In the morning he looked at the photo he had taken and zoomed in and there it was, a scolopendra, a type of massive centipede! My bum was sore for days

? Evie.

Only yesterday I was standing under a tree and an a solute earwig fell on the back of my neck and pinched me. Then another one absolutely pinched me on the shoulder.

But I agree that the worst is stepping barefoot on a slug. The thought still repulses me now although I only did it once, years ago. Always slip on shoes before going out on the grass in the morning dew now.

I didn't know that centipedes could bite Evie
But I did end up in A&E after an Australian spider bit me.