Come sing along with me – “Lumbago, lumbago, that’s my kind of pain,” with apologies to Mister Sinatra, and Al Capone as well, as it definitely was his town for a while. Just in case any of you are not familiar with the song it goes “Chicago Chicago, that’s my kind of town.” And the reason for my singing? Kneeling on the kitchen floor the other day and siphoning off some homemade orange wine I twisted my back. I felt it go and knew immediately I was in dead trouble and so it was. I became incapacitated and dead boring it was, apart from the agony I mean. Is it because we are two-legged animals that the lumbar region is so prone to aches and pains? And all for two bottles of wine, delicious though it may be. And I’ve still got about eight or nine demijohns of various wines to decant. Will have to go more carefully in future.

At last it would seem the season of that nasty little bloodsucker the mosquito is over for this year and the nets are no longer needed. I am informed, I don’t know how true it is, that a mosquito can detect its next meal from a distance of twenty feet and that it is body odour that leads it to its prey. Using an anti mozzie spray or rubbing a lotion on exposed parts might stop them there but the question I would like answered is how do the little buggers get through clothes to bite you where you ‘re not protected and in the most intimate places? Vitamin B12 is evidently off-putting but how much vitamin B12 must a body take to be effective? There are various herbs as well, the scent of which they dislike; lavender, rosemary and, from a tree rather than a herb, eucalyptus. So, as we have both lavender and rosemary in the garden and the trees at the bottom of the lane are eucalyptus, instead of buying expensive commercial anti-mozzie sprays, this summer Chris made up one of our own which did appear to be just as effective, though they still managed to get through to those body parts not sprayed.

In the dryer parts of the island mosquitoes are not a problem but we live in the greenest area and of course the house is surrounded by foliage so the little buggers breed wherever there happens to be a bit of damp. Funnily enough it was only at the end of the summer that they became a real pain but at last I can sleep without the net which means it’s all over till next year. Now that we have had the first rains, and I mean rain, solidly for three days and nights, greenery is shooting up all over in front of your eyes. It seems to grow as you watch.

I’m just grateful we don’t live in South America where they have those really ugly little blood-sucking horrors – the vampire bat. Yuk!