Under seige in Provence

Oh it all sounds so idyllic, doesn't it ... cicadas chirping in the trees, bees buzzing about the lavender. But no, living in countryside Provence is next level dangerous. Forget the narrow winding roads and crazy frenchman on bikes, its the damn insects that will kill you!

Throughout the Summer we have been hunted down by monster wasps who nest in the clothesline and pool umbrellas, bees who seem to be intent on sharing our aperol spritz and jambon cru, and vicious mosquitos that will find the one little patch of skin you forgot to dose in repellent and go to town on you.

You would think being an Aussie, I would be used to bugs and bites, but this place is insane. We've seen geckos on the window sill, a frog on the back table, caught huge grasshoppers in the lounge room and centerpeids in the bathroom. The French have not caught on to the idea of fly screens and every night we find ourselves either chasing down mosquitos or eradicating the bedroom of blowflies or hornet wasps.

But above all else .... the one creepy crawly that really gives me goosebumps ... is the SCORPION!

You heard me right, we have encountered not one, but four scorpions in the last couple of months. You can't kill these suckers with insect spray or the back of a flip-flop, they need some serious battering, and the croquet clubs have become the weapon of choice for Scott - I stand back and take photos obviously. "Don't kill him yet" I say, "let me grab my camera!".

Of course, after the first scorpion encounter in the garage, I spent hours online researching ways to deter them and ended up placing dried lavender in all the window sills and around the edges of Elliot's cot. I was madly getting the torch every night and looking under the bed and on the ceiling in fear of them getting in our room. But alas, the little darlings prefer to hover in the doorways downstairs and I almost didn't even freak out last week when coming home from dinner I brushed straight past one in the front doorway and we decided to let the little fella live ... they're all part of the ecosystem right?!

If it's one thing that won't be bothering us from now on, it's wasps at the dinner table. 

While Em was here a few weeks ago, she came up with a fantastic plan to set up a 'ham trap' to entice the wasps away from the table and onto a lovely piece of jambon cru ... we ate in relative piece and the 6 or 7 wasps literally devoured the ham over the course of an hour. Who knew french wasps were meat eaters?! 

So, still think Provence is idyllic as the pictures make out?! 

A xx