I am on Skye. It is hot. It is Scotland. There is no wind. There are midges. EVERYWHERE.
The bedroom I am occupying is not large and last night it was hot and stuffy so I opened the window - for 3 seconds and then shut it again. However I could not shut the ventilator.
Midges, like mosquitoes, are attracted to carbon monoxide. The room soon filled with my breath and thus contained enough carbon monoxide to attract every midge in Portree. Which I think it did.
Despite having disposed of the duvet when I got into bed I woke at 0322 cooking in my own perspiration being bitten mercilessly by females feeding their young (only female midges bite).
It has not been a good night. Fortunately I do not react badly to midge bites which, given that I must have well over a hundred that I can see and there must be many more that I can't, would have been terrible for some people who react very badly.
Today is going to be interesting. I'm meeting a fellow blogger and her husband who will be visiting Skye. I shall blog about that after the event. However this evening I have to drive to Glasgow. I f I'm too tired I might end up sleeping in the car. It's Bank Holiday weekend and it would seem that every available bed in the West of Scotland is occupied for the next few days.
I've blogged about midges many times but this one entitled 'B****y Midges' at least had some humour in it.
Arghh...you are lucky you don't react to them...otherwise I could imagine a lot of itching going on!
ReplyDeleteThat link doesn't work...it comes up 'null'
Have a great day.
Thanks Serenata. I'll mend the link when I've got my laptop on wifi. I'm having to use my phone at the moment. Sitting on the harbour wall in Portree in the sun.
DeleteSerenata I'm now in Glasgow and after a wonderful night's sleep with the windows open and not a midge to be seen I can look back and smile and I've mended the broken link.
DeleteOh dear, that would drive me insane! Plus I do react rather strongly to insect bites and stings. Nice that you are meeting a blogging friend!
ReplyDeleteMeike if I had been allergic or even reacted badly to midge bites I would have been in a bad way.It was just the fact that the nip they give is enough to make sleep a little difficult and they crawl into your ears and eyes even if they don't bite. I did have a lot of little red bite marks all over me yesterday morning but most have gone already. A perfect subject for a Thankful Thursday post or for playing the Glad Game.
DeleteThe very first time I saw England, I was amazed that no one had screens on their windows!
ReplyDeleteNow, a lot of houses here don't have them but that is only because they never open their windows.
We have such insects here, we have to have them if we want to open our windows to get fresh air.
I wonder if your midges is the same as the gnats in the South. I am going to do a post soon and will have a mention of the gnats. Gives you a reason to live, doesn't it? HA!
Kay I expect the gnats and the midges are relatives or perhaps just Scottish Midges with a Southern drawl. Either way they are all deeply unpleasant. Although when they are about they will come into my conservatory at home if I have all the windows and doors open I can't ever recall having them invade my house. If I do find some in the house it's usually because they came in on my clothes or in my hair after I've been in the garden.
DeleteI would have lost the will to live if I had been bitten that many times. Have a good trip and hope the rest of the trip is midgeless.
ReplyDeleteSpesh I'd not lost the will to live fortunately (for me) but it was a close thing!
DeleteMidges and mosquitoes can be more than a nuisance. We have good screens on every window. I'm one of those fortunate people who are not bothered by mosquitoes.
ReplyDeleteRed we are fortunate not to have mosquitoes in Scotland. I was once in Italy in a screened very large bedroom with a persistent mosquito trapped inside and no spray. In the morning my face was covered in bites and I was not a pretty site.
DeleteLittle buggers! !! Breezy here just now but still nice. None around at the moment. You obviously make a tasty feast for them. Us females are a fiesty bunch!! Enjoy your trip x
ReplyDeleteCarol I think that had they been listening 'little buggers' would have not offended them but my thoughts certainly would have.
DeleteSorry you had that problem. Thank you for the information about midges.
ReplyDeleteMaywyn I would like to think that my general thoughts would be such that, if your blog is anything to go by, you would not usually find them incompatible with your philosophy. I'm afraid that that night would have been an exception.
DeleteI would have to put up fine mesh screens immediately and probably spray Off on my body as well. Don't know how you can stand them!
ReplyDeleteJill if I had them at home so would I but I was staying in a bed and breakfast establishment away from home with no defences!
DeleteI've heard about Scottish Midges, but never experienced them. I thought a couple of Mosquitoes was bad enough!
ReplyDeleteCro as I mentioned earlier I did experience a night with a mosquito in a hotel in Italy: not a pleasant experience.
DeleteI hate midges aka sand flies as we sometimes call them here...but they love me! I'm already scratching just at the thought of the little pests!!!
ReplyDeleteLee I'm back home a week after the incident and it already seems like just a bad dream. Sand flies and their ilk are pernicious and their tiny size seems to make them seem even worse. In Western Australia I found the 'ordinary' larger flies in their thousands more annoying.
DeleteI have experienced the midges of Scotland - thick clouds of them that you breathe in. They drive you away to midge-free places such is the misery they create. Funny how the "Visit Scotland" ads never mention the midges
ReplyDeleteYP the Visit Scotland ads certainly don't mention them but large parts of the Scottish tourist trade acknowledge the reality and even try and profit from it. Whatever the fact that just about every bed in Scotland's West Coast at least was occupied last weekend seems to suggest that the midge isn't winning.
DeleteAs Lee say, we do have sandflies or midges here but I must go to the wrong places because I have only seen them once. We were on a camping holiday near the beach and they would blacken any bare skin. I nearly scratched myself raw, ghastly things!
ReplyDeleteMosquitoes bother me a lot less and even though I couldn't catch anything to save my life I have a good record for making a fist around a dive bombing mozzy
Kylie mosquitoes bother me more in that I react to their bites and I seem to be immune to the midge bites (other than that they leave a mark and are a good nip when they happen). However midges can buzz down your ears and get in your eyes and up your nose which I find very unpleasant indeed.
Deleteeek! midgies are so annoying! we have them here in Summer and always usually keep fly spray in the bedroom.
ReplyDeleteAmy for some odd reason I rarely get them indoors at home. I've never worked out why.
DeleteI'm afraid any dreams I may ever have had about Scotland have now been turned into nightmares... (I do tend to react strongly to bites from little creatures like that. Luckily, in town where I live it doesn't happen all that often.) Glad to see in a comment that you managed to escape from them and they didn't follow you to Glasgow, though.
ReplyDeleteMonica I certainly will make sure that I have midge repellent with me in future however I can truthfully say that I can never recall being attacked like that in a hotel or any bedroom before by midges (but I have by mosquitoes).
DeleteYuck! I do dislike mosquitoes a lot so I think I might dislike midges as well... though I have never heard of them until now.
ReplyDeleteLynda I'm sure that you'd dislike them but for reasons different from a dislike of mozzies.
DeleteThat must have been a horrible night. Should have screens on the windows or cover your skin with insect repellent. Good luck for your next night.
ReplyDeleteDiane if I had even thought that midges might be that much of a problem indoors and at this time of year I would have had repellent with me and I certainly wouldn't have opened the window. Thinking about it again I had walked all the way out from the centre of Portree after having had dinner and hadn't said 'Hello' to a single midge so why they all decided on my bedroom is a mystery.
DeleteMy reaction is immediate to any insect stings/bites, so you're quite lucky not to be affected.
ReplyDeleteYes Virginia I'm very fortunate when it comes to midges. Sandflies, on the other hand, can have a really serious effect on me.
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