Hello
Good morning!
and welcome to horsefly city
Cleg city.
Making me itchy, look at that!
Isn't that just gorgeous.
We're so lucky
Or if you don't want us in the shot directly in front of it, look at it from the drone.
There you go, beautiful isn't it.
It's been so hot, not really here but it has been so hot that,
Especially in England.
we've come up to the top of Glen Loth,
[Colin] where it's a bit it's only 19ºC up here. [Shaun] Things biting me.
But we are getting bitten, we're covered in Smidge,
which is not a euphemism for those of you who don't know what Smidge is.
[Slaps leg]
Horsefly!
Anyway bit of a serious message to this week's vlog
Yes.
Can we do serious?
Not really.
I don't think we can, can we?
No, it always turns into a farce.
Do you watch The Simpsons?
I do.
I'm asking,
I'm asking you.
OK.
Well, I don't know if you remember back to Season 2 Episode 19,
Lisa's Substitute. it was called.
I'm good at The Simpsons.
That's 30 years ago.
and Miss Hoover thought she'd got Lyme Disease,
she hadn't, she hadn't, she came back and it was all psychosomatic.
But do you know why that's weird,
Yeah
it's weird because Shaun's actually got Lyme Disease
Yeah.
and I'm psycho, not somatic,
No just psycho.
Just psycho, I think our washing machine's somatic isn't it, or is it automatic.
I don't know, one of them.
Get away!
So yeah, Shaun's got Lyme Disease
Yes.
and we never, I never thought,
ARRRGHHH!
Never thought I would say that.
I'm not gonna tell you what I was doing at the time, but I noticed this weird
shaped rash on Shaun's leg,
why is that funny?
The first signs of Limes, Lyme Disease,
I've got to stop saying limes, because you get into trouble.
Do you?
Yeah.
is this rash, now sometimes
it can be like this big rash or sometimes it can be a smaller bullseye.
Yeah.
But Shaun had it and that set me off panicking,
And I didn't even know.
because he had no other symptoms.
So, first thing we did was send him straight to the doctors.
So what is Lyme disease and how do you catch it?
Well in Shaun's case it was after
he borrowed a wig from somebody to drag up for a bar mitzvah party.
[Laughs]
No!
Was it not?
No!
No you can't catch it from borrowed wigs,
No.
honestly.
You catch it from ticks,
now ticks are abundant up here in the highlands,
but they're all over the country and they're in a lot of countries.
So what are they? with a
well they're very very very tiny, they're only between like one and three millimetres long
and they look like spiders, but they've got like big front teeth,
Eww!
and even though they're only tiny like a couple of millimetres,
once they latch on to you and bury their head in you
in you and start sucking the blood out of you,
they grow to the size of a coffee bean.
They do.
Well I've gone right off that coffee.
Like a small grape.
Yeah, Urgghh, it makes you itchy just thinking about it.
Now up here they live on really,
deer and sheep and hedgehogs and sometimes foxes.
Yeah.
But they can't jump or fly,
so they crawl up the stems of long grass and they wait for somebody
or something to walk past
and then when you brush against it, they latch on and that's how they get you
and then they crawl somewhere quiet and warm.
And I've been strimming long grass.
and there you go.
Once it's latched itself onto you,
Ahh!
it can stay on you for days
Yes.
and it can be two or three days
before it's kind of got its,
I'm not, I can't, I don't want to say. . .
It's fill!
Urrrgghhh!
And you can't just pull them off.
No.
Some people say you can burn them off with cigarettes,
no you can't do that either and you can't use your nails.
You have to use like a special tool, a tick removing tool,
or like really fine pointed ended tweezers
and you have to get it really low down
and twist it.
and pull it upwards.
Oh is it?
Yeah, see even he doesn't know.
Even I don't know.
That's why he's got Lyme Disease isn't it.
I didn't even know I'd been bitten.
Because if you just squeeze it, it squeezes more of the bacteria into you, so,
Urgghh!
Now according to the Scottish Wildlife Trust,
up here in scotland 1 in 20 ticks,
roughly,
carries Lyme Disease.
So this is why Shaun's been really unlucky, because, 'A' he was bitten by a,
he was, well eaten by a tick
and it was just one of the 1 in 20 that carried Lyme Disease.
So the giveaway if you get Lyme Disease for most people,
is this bullseye rash.
Not everybody gets it but most people do.
It looks more like a bruise doesn't it?
Well for Shaun it did
and it kind of just expanded from the back of his thigh
outwards towards the side of your thigh, didn't it?
Yes.
A lot of people get more of a bullseye,
which is, you see where the bite mark is
and then you get like a bullseye ring around it which can expand a little bit.
Yes.
Urrgghhh!
Imagine if you had that like, if the tick bit you on your belly button
and then you'd have like a bullseye around your belly button,
or even worse around your bum hole.
Nooo! [Laughing]
You can't say that!
Can't say bum hole? Stink whistle!
[Laughing loudly]
Your clacker valve!
[Laughing loudly]
No!
Stop!
Your rusty wagon wheel?
Stop!
Okay, I'll stop now.
But not everybody gets that, but there are other symptoms like a fever,
so you might get a headache, you might feel really fatigued with aching joints.
Now Shaun had been doing a lot of gardening
And I had achy joints, from gardening.
So he had achy joints and he was feeling fatigued on an afternoon,
but we don't know if that was because he was just working and he's like really old,
[Laughing] or whether it was the Lyme Disease.
The good news is, that whatever you read on the internet
and I'm not allowed to read on the internet.
No, he's banned from Google.
Whatever you read on the internet, don't be so scared by it,
because if you catch Lyme Disease early
Which we did.
and treat it straight away,
then there's a 90, 95% chance that you will just get rid of it and you'll be fine.
Now worst case scenario, really, generally, except for a few tiny little cases,
is that if you don't treat it straight away,
you can get symptoms for up to about six months or more maybe about a year.
There's like one or two, a handful that have problems,
but they've usually got underlying conditions or something weird going on.
Yeah.
But the vast majority, if you treat it early like we did with Shaun
and it will get better,
hopefully.
But he's had no more symptoms since he started the antibiotics.
It's not got rid of your homosexuality though has it?
[Laughing]
so yeah we got Shaun on the antibiotics on day one,
We did.
well day one that we noticed the rash.
I mean that might have been there anything up to three days or a month or so.
But he was on the. . . straight away and you're not liking them are you?
because you have to take them twice a day for about a month.
The first thing i did was get the label out and see if it was going to darken his stools.
They're not
[Laughing]
Didn't I [Laughing]
I like to know if I'm going to be surprised by any skiddies in the toilet.
Ohhhh!
give up, you can't say things like that!
But he's not enjoying it, because he's not supposed to eat dairy
within or indigestion tablets, which he has indigestion..
There's loads of stuff you can't eat.
So it's like milk and butter and cheese and he basically lives on cheese.
Mmmmmmm cheese!
So he's not been enjoying it,
he can't wait to end the antibiotics, just so that he can eat normally again.
I can't have any alcohol.
[Laughs]
So what about Otis?
Because otis obviously goes running through the long grass
and poking his head here, there and everywhere.
And he does get bitten now and then.
And he has been bitten he's been bitten about a dozen times,
Yeah.
but it's actually luckier for dogs because
because you can get,
well you can get things from like Amazon
and frompet stores that you put on the back of the neck.
Up here in Scotland, we have a different variety of tick,
which apparently doesn't respond to those drops.
So we get some special tablets from the vet, which he has every three months
and we've noticed that when the tick's bite him,
they basically die straight away and fall off don't they?
Yeah.
But you can see them on Otis, because he's like blonde haired
and the ticks are like a really dark brown, red, black colour
Yeah, we spot them straight away.
you tend to spot them and you just brush them off.
Shaun wasn't so lucky,
because it looks like he was bitten right on the back of his thigh,
maybe in the folds behind his knee,
kind of that area.
He's crawled up my leg and bit me.
and so it's not a place where you'd normally spot it
and because he only gets a bath once a month, he were never going to feel it was you really.
[Shaun whispers under his breath] Jesus Christ!
[Colin sniffs] Speaking of which!
[Laughing]
I think it's time.
[Laughing]
Now ticks can't jump or fly,
unlike me
in my dreams.
[Laughs]
I fly in my dreams, do you?
I think most people do.
I like to fly.
Yeah, most people do.
But there's a lot you can do
to keep the ticks away from you.
So if you go in walking, obviously wear long trousers
if you're going to be walking through long grass and and vegetation and stuff.
Tuckk them in your socks.
Vegetables, I nearly said vegetables. Why would you be walking through celery?
I don't know, is celery a vegetable?
I worry about his mind.
And use a repellent, we use Smidge,
there's lots of different repellents and you've all got your own ideas of what works and what doesn't work,
people use Skin so Soft and deet,
there's all sorts, but Smidge works for us and we're quite happy with that.
So use repellent, the other thing you can do is kind of wear long sleeves.
Yes.
Wear light coloured clothing,
so that you can see any midges, because they are like a red, brown, black colour.
Yes.
so you'll notice i'm crawling up you if you've got light-colored chinos on.
You will.
Buff parachute pants.
[Laughing] Buff parachute pants???
That would work as well, wouldn't it?
Oh my god!
When you get home check yourself, check your pets as well
to make sure they haven't got ticks on them as well.
But we don't want to scare you, we don't want to stop you from going out,
No.
I mean the only alternative really is to live in a sealed sterile box,
It is yes.
isn't it? Somewhere in Chad
[Laughs]
Chad?
Yep!
Don't let us put you off about going out though,
because Shaun was unlucky, unlucky to get bitten by a tick
and then unlucky that it was the 1 in 20 that carries Lyme.
Not like a lime.
I think that might be a bit big.
You've got a fly on your head.
That's why I'm itching!
Is it [Laughs]
But if you do get bitten, you now know what to do.
Get a little tick remover tool,
you can get them on Amazon or eBay.
Yeah you can, they only cost a couple of pound.
Yeah, we carry one in the jeep with us or when we go out for a walk
and if you spot one you can
get it out.
But if you spot any of the symptoms get straight to the GP,
because the quicker you start treating it,
the quicker and better chance you've got
of it not developing into anything.
And if you get the bullseye and you tell the GP, he will have you in there in an hour.
It's the bullseye!
Why was it always a speed boat?
Yes,
or a caravan.
Or a caravan, i wouldn't mind that, my granddad had a caravan at Reighton Gap.
[Laughs]
Yeah, you couldn't have got a speedboat over the cliff though.
Errr!
I've forgot what I was going to say.
Oh yeah and it's not just in scotland you get ticks all over Britain now
and in other countries as well.
So be aware of it, or Google it and research yourself and then you didn't need to watch all this crap.
No, they didn't need to watch this rubbish.
Anyway, she's fine now.
She????
Yep.
She's fine,
she wants me to wrap this up so she can turn around and have a look at the views,
we've brought a picnic,
[Laughs]
haven't we? We've got some Peck sandwiches and a cup of sweet tea.
Peck???
Yeah.
So we hope you've enjoyed this video
and that you've learned a thing or two.
We hope so.
Yeah we hope so.
if you have and if you're not already subscribed, subscribe to the channel.
Yeah.
Hit the thumbs up button
and if you hit the big dangly bell,
YouTube will let you know every time we release a new video,
which is usually every Friday at 4 o'clock,
but it might not be from now on.
Oh really?
Yeah, of course it will, who am I kidding.
[Laughs]
If you want to support the channel, there's a couple of ways you can do it,
you can become a Patreon or a YouTube member,
details up above Shaun's head on the screen if you're watching on a smartphone
and it's my birthday in a couple of weeks,
It is.
if you want to go on our Amazon Wishlist,
which is down in the video description and buy me some chocolate or something,
8th of August
or some poo bags
[Laughs]
for Otis! Not for me.
Those of you that have got a calendar will know.
Yeah.
Right, are we done?
We're done I think.
Right, we're going to show you some nice views now
as we as we cruise off into the sunset in our JEEEEEEEP!
Sunset? It's midday.
Bye!
[Music playing]
Blah blah blah blah blah! My knapsack on my back.
🎶 Valdari, valdara 🎶
Don't you remember that?
I do yes.
My shorts keep falling down, I haven't got a belt on.
You cannot say that!
Midges keep landing on me and dying.
[Laughing]
Is my hair still white?
[Laughs]
Bear with.
I Scotland
Arrgghh!
Is my hair still white?
I think it is yeah
[Laughs]
basically keep it,
Sorry.
What?
I was still laughing.
Do you want a minute to calm down?
I hate him [Laughs]
Is my hair still white?
Your hair's still white yeah
[Laughs]
That wasn't in the script that one.
I'm itching now!
Uganda!
[Laughs] Where?
I don't know.
Always check yourself when you get back.
Yeah.
[Laughs]
I'm itching.
We're not getting bitten.
No, but I'm itching.
Is that a bite or a mole?
Lets have a look, that's a mole.
Can we hurry this up, I want to turn around and look at the view.
I'm still itching!
Forgotten again.
We're gonna do it again.
Let's get rid of that one.
[Music playing]