I hate mozzies, and other stories

I noticed on the way home last night that there seemed to be more insects around, from greenfly trying to get themselves eaten, or sticking to my clothes to a small cloud of midges hanging around while I was waiting at the level crossing. I don't know whether it was the midges, or an actual mosquito, but I realised once I was home that I had a bit on the back of my left wrist, and I later noticed a pink mark between the first two knuckles of that hand, and a bit of poking showed there was another bite there too. Irritating, but not the end of the world.

Overnight however I seem to have had a rather nasty reaction, a bit like my dad gets, and my left hand is now all puffy right round the first two knuckles, and it's even a bit hard to clench my fist! If it doesn't settle down soon I think I'm going to have to get someone to look at it. I don't mind the itching so much (OK, I lied, I *do* mind the itching) but the fact it actually *hurts* a bit is bad. Though the small bruise on the back of the same hand from my adventures in furniture moving over the weekend probably doesn't help.

Bah!

In rather cooler cycling news I was overtaken uphill (over a railway bridge anyway) by someone on a bakfiets cargo bike with a little girl in the front yesterday - turns out it had an electrical motor to assist the pedalling. Certainly not a quiet one mind. If all electric cars were that noisy you'd not have to worry about them silently sneaking up on you :)

And to finish with another bah, my mobile phone is sulking. I noticed a couple of weeks back that the battery was no longer lasting even 48 hours, so since it was under 6 months old I got Orange to replace it under warranty - assuming it was the battery at fault. Turns out it's still draining the battery in a day and a half even with a brand new battery. Really not looking forward to ringing them up again and getting them to replace the phone!