I have found the ultimate campsite essential item

[NeatFreak]

Following last year's visit to a campsite swarming with wasps (to the extent that we were taking it in turns to eat while someone else jumped around rediverting flying pests until they'd finished!) I have found a pack of 5 fly swats in Poundland. One for each of us plus one left over... I now have visions of us all sitting round the table, fork in one hand and swat in the other

Duplicitous.... thanks for those pictures. You've reminded me why I haven't been camping in Scotland since :o

yuk yuk ticks! They terrify me. Do I really need a special Thing to remove them? How many camping MNers have had run-ins with them?

Wasps merely get very very focused (on stinging you) if you swat at them, IM(painful)E. you need something hard to swat them against, otherwise the swatted wasp probably just ricochets off another family member and stings them.

I may be over-thinking this. I hate bloody wasps.

Slubber - coincidentally, I just re-read The Giant Jam Sandwich last week! Found it in the library and decided to introduce DS1 to it, and it is a lot wierder than I remembered. Horrible illustrations - everyone looks like a character out of League of Gentlemen.

DD got a tick in her neck a couple of years ago, we weren't camping but had been walking and sitting in long grass at a NT property. Used tweezers to get it out because we didn't know about the special tool, but keep one in our travel first aid kit now.

Another firm fan of the electric tennis racket here, find it particularly satisfying for wasps.

Does that sizzly tennis racquet really work then? I might get my mum one - fear/hatred of wasps runs in the family.

DH comes over all funny when I use Skin So Soft. It smells of our honeymoon, apparently. (We went to Canada which is rivalled only by Scotland in terms of biting midges.)

It's excellent for wasps, flies are not so easy to get because they are so fast, I can generally only get them if you can trap them on a flat surface such as a window which is obviously tricky in a tent. Vey good for small midge type things too.

DD got a tick at Easter, when we were camping in Dorset. NHS direct (I was clueless) told us to use tweezers. Definatley no alcohol or burning etc. Think I will invest in that specailised thingy for our next trip. Horrible little blighters.

Where can you buy an electric tennis racket??

i've had mine for a few years, think i got it from The Range. Saw them in Camping World too racket

where can you buy the gadget to get tiks off? we got the new forest alot and the thought of them terrifies me!

Got the tick remover from a pet shop, people have them for dogs.

What can be done about daddylonglegs? They creep the bejeezus out of me and citronella candles just seemed to attract them and became little DLL suicide sites.

I got a tick camping in Dorset a couple of years ago when I was pregnant - cue massive panic and me and DH rushing off to Swanage Hospital where they were marvellous and calming and whipped the little blighter off me in no time with a little plastic implement made specially for the job. Apparently they are pretty common in Dorset.

If you google tick remover there are loads of sites you can buy them on - I still think I might be tempted to pop into hospital to get a professional to deal with it, at least if we are near Swanage - they were so lovely.

Somebody I know went camping and spilled a carton of Apple juice in the tent. They woke up to find it swarming with ants [shudder]

Tick repellent available in switzerland so I assume it will be in Germany too.
Don't hold the electric swatter to your ear to see if there is a battery in it. It gives you a nasty burn on the lughole.

I shouldn't have read this thread. It brings back memories of our tick-tastic holiday in rural Perthshire last year [shudder].

Going back again this year, though!