Garage Door.

I’ve bashed my hand against this door a few times recently which is rather sore, though it might help if I paint it with wood preservative.
 
The problem is that I have a pathological hatred of wasps and, since there are only queens around at the moment, they are a particular target of my feelings. Later in the year, killing a wasp means merely that one wasp dies whereas, killing a queen prevents a whole colony of a few thousand coming into existence. I am not so naive as to think that every creature has its use on this planet but, similarly, I don’t think a species should be exterminated just because some of us don’t like it. Although they are closely related to bees, unlike them, they are carnivorous and, as such, destroy a lot of garden pests – and I do like our garden, even some of the pests. It’s just the wasps that I don’t like, though I could stretch a point and include slugs as well if it wasn’t that they are hermaphrodite and I have a sneaking admiration for a lower creature which gains twice the pleasure that humans can from a basic bodily function.
 
That garage door comes into the story because it attracts wasps, a lot of wasps; they meticulously pull wood fibres away and use them to make paper to build their nests. It’s not that I begrudge them the garage door, neither does Mrs TD begrudge them her potting shed, it’s just that I have vivid memories from my childhood of my mother coating my entire body with calamine lotion in a vain attempt to relieve the intense irritation caused by a single sting from a single wasp. This was in the days before piriton, epipens or the emergency services taking allergic reactions seriously. Therefore, if I see one here, the urge to flatten it against the door is irresistible.
 
It is still odd that I should have such an irrational dislike of the creatures; after all, I devote a significant portion of my life tending my bees – in spite of being violently allergic to their venom.