Well we were tidy!

Thought I would give you an idea of the living space we are so pleased to have, which is away from the chaos of the rest of the house, which is going to be ongoing for several months yet due to the fact that Jean Pierre, our wonderful French builder, can only work here at the weekends. 

This video was taken in the 'before' time though. Because now we are in upsy downsy mode here in the Half Barn as well, because......

....well two evenings ago I was sitting at my PC, and a big black fly landed on my lamp. Swat. Was sorted. Then another one flew onto my PC. Swat again. Then another on the lamp again. Swat. Then swat, swat, swat, swat, as several more, at intervals of a minute or so  kept on appearing. Didn't think too much about it, although thought it odd, as did Lester, who is Chief Fly Swatter here, having lived his early life in the heat of South Africa where flies do what flies do, and that is breed with speed, including of course the maggot to pupa to adult fly stages. This has rendered Lester with 'Fly Phobia', so that whenever a fly enters the house he will, with speed, hunt it down. It also means that doors and windows must be kept shut, which I have found irritating, because I like windows and doors open. 

Anyway, during the day more big black flies kept appearing, lazily flying around as if still half asleep, heading towards the French doors, or the velux windows. 
"There's a funny smell in here" commented Lester a couple of days ago. 'Must change the sheets' was my immediate reaction, thinking that he meant the beddy smell that can happen when sheets are needing to be put in the wash, not that I do not change the sheets regularly but I had gone past my normal sheet change day a few days ago. 
"That smell is worse" grumbled Lester yesterday. Ah, so not the sheets because I had changed them earlier. 
Swat, swat, swat, Lester with fly swat, me with the broom. 
"That's it", he yelled, "I've had it..... there must be something dead in here"....
Oh strooth, so then he went on a hunt for the dead thing. Sniffing the air, he tracked down the point at which he thought the smell was stronger. It was the long leather settee, covered over with a duvet because leather is flipping cold to sit on in the winter and flipping uncomfortable in the summer when one's sweatiness makes one's skin stick to the leather like glue. 

Off came the duvet, flung on to the floor. Away from the wall he dragged the settee. 
"There, see?" he said, with an 'I told you so' look on his face. I, meanwhile, helped where I could, but was useless with the 'tracking of the smell' exercise as I don't have a sense of smell anywhere near as strong as Lester has, and was not particularly enthused with the hunting down of the dead corpse, which I knew had to be done but I didn't want to really have to be involved. But he did involve me with the examination of what he had seen, which was a scattering of black little pods, which could of been rat droppings, which we are familiar with, but which he decided was hatching eggs because "They have rings on them" he said. 

Oh crikey, so it was a dead body of something or other and not the sheets which had caused the 'aroma'. Oh strooth. 

"Got to find it" Lester said as he started forcefully dismantling the settee. We didn't. So we left the settee and all its bits strewn hither and thither and went out to the local supermarket for wine and choccie, because that is what one does when one is ticked off with the endless fight with the local population of four footed things which really think it is their right to live in our house as well. I also bought some scented candles and a packet of joss sticks as I also could now smell the smell. 

Swat, swat, swat, back to the swatting task we went when we returned home. Swat, swat swat, well into the evening. Then all stopped, no more swatting was needed. Was this the end? Had we finished with terminating the lives of these young flies? Had they finished hatching? Was the still unfound carcase finished with? We do not know yet. 

The candles worked a treat as did the joss sticks. We had a good nights sleep, surprisingly neither of us having dreams about flies and dead things, although I suspect that will happen sometime in the future. So now the task today is hunt down the carcase, which means moving everything all about as we do so. I wanted to do other things today. I did not want to shift furniture about, armed with a vacuum cleaner in case more eggs were spotted. I have done enough furniture shifting over the last few weeks. 

Not to worry, Vera. This is a task which needs to be done, and not to worry that it would seem that fly-phobia is arriving in your head as well. At least that will stop the ongoing argument between you and Hubs as to whether the doors and windows should be open or not, at least there will be peace on that question, because all the doors and windows will be closed during peak fly-flying times for ever more in the future. There! Something positive to take with you as you start the hunt! 

Now off to get our menagerie fed. 

Hope your Christmas season is progressing wonderfully well. Hope your tummies are not too full such that windyness is occurring, but not to worry if it is, because a good dose of bicarbonate of soda should do the trick. It might taste absolutely horrid but it does the trick, and fast!