To bring you this.

Well it’s probably poetic justice……..

Last night I was writing outside in a summer corner I’ve created between van and wall. It’s carpeted, there’s a bench and a table and I’ve run a cable from the house so I have electricity. It’s an outside living room.

My son, miraculously had decided it was time to crash his friend’s house and chocolate biscuit supply, and my daughter is camping with her friend (and dad) who is not her boyfriend, just friends.

After a weekend alone reminiscing about Woodstock I was waiting for Krissie to return from a weekend of performing in Germany so that we could start a new festival of love and peace in our own garden.

The evening was perfect, the sky drowned in stars, the crickets singing. A fire was lit, the logs were blazing, candles lit the route and a bottle of wine lay chilled in the fridge.

As I wrote moths gathered around the light I had plugged in to illuminate the keyboard.

And then a “Frelon”.

Except the “Frelon” didn’t gather, it attacked the light- repeatedly. I wrote on about Mr Bee who sells honey down in the market.

The “Frelon” continued its persistent and angry attitude.

I am not scared of many things, crocodiles yes but there aren’t any around here or where I usually travel, Maths exams too, but restricted to dreams now. Oh, and uninvited teenage males too near my chocolate biscuits.

And “Frelons”.

Frelon is the French word for Hornet, but the word Hornet in no way satisfyingly describes the size of this thing.
It was about….well there’s no chance of me going near the thing with a ruler so lets say it was about the length of my thumb, all of it. About as fat too, and with all this writing my thumbs are significant.

People say that the Frelon’s poison is never entirely eradicated from the body and that twenty separate or simultaneous stings will kill you. I don’t know, Wikipedia does not confirm this but I have been stung once on the hand and my arm was paralysed for several days so I’m not ready to find out.

Maybe THAT is why my thumbs are so chunky.

Anyway the psychological trauma is NEVER EVER eradicated.

When they started building a nest in the empty barn next to the kitchen the locals advised me to call the Pompiers, volunteer firemen/ambulance. They arrived looking like they were ready for armed combat. When my brother in law parked his car over another nest they chased the car to the next town before giving up (the Frelon not the Pompiers).

So as I wrote about Mr Bee the local honey seller, I was half aware of this demented potential killer.

When he stopped hitting the light and landed on my thigh I was fully aware.

I tried to continue breathing, I didn’t care if it was calm or not - just that I continued, but I stopped writing.

The Frelon hesitated, and then started to crawl, slowly, methodically up towards the loose t-shirt I was wearing.

I stood very, very slowly and inched toward the light, willing the Frelon to re-acquaint itself with florescent illumination.
It crawled across my back and I lost sight.

In the direct glare of the light now I could see nothing, my wife was still somewhere on the road from Toulouse, my son would have been annoying, probably asking for more money knowing I would say anything in that stressful state.

I very, very, very slowly lifted the shirt over my neck, holding only the smallest amount of collar possible, drew it over my head ready to die, dislodged my glasses causing temporary blindness and then i dropped everything and ran to the fire.

Just a little scream escaped.

My wife heard it at the airport.


(Read more about other things that can kill you in France)