Attack of the spoiler wasps
Friday, August 06, 2004
The girls arrived back from their windsurfing exhausted as much by the heat as by the exertion. I got to work on the barbecue, letting my son Sean wear the chef's hat under the pretence of finding it too hot to wear myself.
Chicken and pepper kebabs, the inevitable sausages, ribs, and some small thin steaks. The new gas barby is a joy to use - no struggle to get lit and up to temperature and no worries about the heat dying away before the chicken is cooked through. And the weather was perfect. What could spoil it?
Wasps. As soon as the girls sat down at the table in the middle of the garden the first reconnaisance squadron arrived. The first squeals from the girls warned of their arrival. More wasps came. attracted to the meat, the fizzy sugary drinks (when will we parents learn?), and the movement. This pattern repeated itself until I was left alone in the garden with the barbecue and the wasps: the girls retreated indoors.
That's the great British summer for you. If it's not raining then any attempt to enjoy eating outside falls prey to ants or wasps or flies. I always hated picnics as a child. Never mind the insects; there's also the problem of trying to eat while sitting on a rough piece of ground. It's like those buffet meals where you're supposed to stand around and eat with a plate in one hand and a drink in the other. The evening is spent searching for some surface to rest your drink while you have a bite or to rest your plate and your drink while you attack some meal unsuitable for a buffet with a plastic knife and fork.
OK, enough of that. Time for bed, where I shall lie awake and struggle to sleep while five girls in the room below chat and giggle through the night.
Chicken and pepper kebabs, the inevitable sausages, ribs, and some small thin steaks. The new gas barby is a joy to use - no struggle to get lit and up to temperature and no worries about the heat dying away before the chicken is cooked through. And the weather was perfect. What could spoil it?
Wasps. As soon as the girls sat down at the table in the middle of the garden the first reconnaisance squadron arrived. The first squeals from the girls warned of their arrival. More wasps came. attracted to the meat, the fizzy sugary drinks (when will we parents learn?), and the movement. This pattern repeated itself until I was left alone in the garden with the barbecue and the wasps: the girls retreated indoors.
That's the great British summer for you. If it's not raining then any attempt to enjoy eating outside falls prey to ants or wasps or flies. I always hated picnics as a child. Never mind the insects; there's also the problem of trying to eat while sitting on a rough piece of ground. It's like those buffet meals where you're supposed to stand around and eat with a plate in one hand and a drink in the other. The evening is spent searching for some surface to rest your drink while you have a bite or to rest your plate and your drink while you attack some meal unsuitable for a buffet with a plastic knife and fork.
OK, enough of that. Time for bed, where I shall lie awake and struggle to sleep while five girls in the room below chat and giggle through the night.
