A typical headline that none of us wants to read. Having moved to a relatively crime-free environment in New Zealand, we never dreamt of first-hand experience. By the way, for those grammatical purists among us, “dreamt” is a UK-English word, while “dreamed” is the US-English equivalent. Both are correct.
End of English lesson.
However, we must face the fact that we live in a real world, and the ugly real world has ugly real thugs, intent on inflicting harm and ugly injury to the defenceless. Frequently, for no apparent reason.
Yesterday, while quietly doing…, well, doing… well, nothing, I heard a muffled shriek from the bathroom.
“He got me! He got me! Oooooww!”
Jeanette appeared semi-grief-stricken at the conservatory door where I was seated doing…, well, nothing. She was grasping her right hand with her left hand and headed for the kitchen sink with me in pursuit, filled with curiosity and concern.
(Above) 0800- WASP: There he stood, bold as a wasp in the hand wash-basin in the bathroom, seemingly proud of his callous dastardly deed.
It transpires that the “attacker” was a wasp, a creature which is very fond of sitting on towels hanging in the bathroom. Small, but powerful.
I Googled the Bees and Wasps First Aid for NZ. Bees leave a sting and are pretty useless after injecting the barb through your skin. Wasps, on the other hand, have no barbs and live to inflict multiple stings, over and over again.
Apparently, this is a Vespula germanica, as opposed to the common one, the Vespula vulgaris. He has “loose” dot-markings between the crown layers.
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