Vampires beware

The Loth clan are trying an experiment this year in preparation for the annual Canadian Hoopla. Whilst we love Canada dearly, and the Maritimes in particular (that noise you can hear is XUP and the Ottowa Tourist Board collectively grinding their teeth) there is one aspect of our holidays that tends to be less than ideal.

The wildlife. Specifically the winged, bite-y, "Oh look! Scottish food!" wildlife. SB, Husband and I tend to get repeatedly nibbled upon by hordes of invisible and sometimes not-so-invisible-but-I-sort-of-wish-I-HADN'T-seen-that-actually insects. The bites would be bad enough but our tender Scottish systems are unprepared for the onslaught and go into complete allergic overdrive leaving us with angry, red itchy lumps the size of soup plates all over us. Combined with the pasty white Scottish skin, it's not an attractive look.

Oddly, FB doesn't tend to get bitten. The only explanation we can come up with for this is that he doesn't taste nice. He is the dairy allergic member of the family, which leads us to suspect that mosquitos must really like the taste of butter, cheese and chocolate ice cream.

Anyway, my mother used to also be the sort of person who only had to bare a tiny part of her skin for hordes of flesh-eating midgies to descend and chase her indoors. But no longer. She can now brazenly walk abroad in summer (or the closest Scottish approximation thereto) without being eaten alive.

And she puts this down to...........garlic. She started taking those odourless garlic capsules a few years ago and since then she swears she does not get bitten by mosquitos. It sounds a bit unlikely, I know but if mozzies are fond of the taste of milk, who is to say they don't recoil at the tang of garlic? They are bloodsuckers after all, and since we would look a bit odd trying to fend them off with teeny-tiny crosses, garlic it is. I'll let you know how we get on.