It looked a lot like this (with the very narrow thorax).



A red paper wasp.

I was all like this...

There are wasps in the guttering of my parents' house!

Outside my teenage bedroom window!

I've had to relocate to the small guest room at the back!

Which was also my bedroom during an even earlier era!

I spare no mercy for wasps. Last week there were three! having a fight in a lampshade. One longish spray of some highly lethal but pleasantly scented aerosol was all it took.

A huge wasp suddenly appeared in my room! It must have flown in when I had the window open earlier.

I sprayed it with anti-fungal spray, which was all I had to hand, and scooped it out of the window.

You've now created a super-wasp with mega-fungal resistance.

Precisely why I hurried out to Home Bargains and bought some proper insecticide. I need better weapons to fight it if it returns.

Funny you should say that. The largest bee I’ve ever seen was in my living room last week. I opened the window as wide as possible but it must’ve been in a panic so it wouldn’t leave. I had to make a tent with the curtains and a roll of sellotape so it couldn’t back into the room, then twist the voile the opposite way round, standing on a chair to stop it from keeping flying/climbing into the twist at the top.

My aim was to get it to stop panicking long enough to calm down and notice the way out was right there. Finally it did, my efforts worked, and it flew out and off into the afternoon.

See, Countess, no need to panic and murder our little bewinged pals.

Just some patience and a calm head...

I disapprove of killing insects (other than wool moths).

I have never killed a bee in my life. Wasps are a different matter.

cosmictanya wrote:

then twist the voile

AKA net curtain.

Butterfield wrote:

cosmictanya wrote:

then twist the voile

AKA net curtain.

How dare you. I got my voile from the warrant holder to QEII. The very same stuff hangs at Buckingham Palace. Not everywhere supplies the lengths required for my ceiling to floor height but they did. It was only meant to be a stopgap after the white muslin that had been up tore in the wash, but it’s been quite a few years now. It withstands discolouring better than the muslin, so it requires less frequent laundering. The only thing I don’t like is the sheen in the sun.

cosmictanya wrote:

Butterfield wrote:

cosmictanya wrote:

then twist the voile

AKA net curtain.

white muslin

AKA old bedsheet.

I used to see her everywhere.