Cloves for pipes and spiders

My Grandad had a heavy smoking habit – pipes mainly – and he decided to give up. To stop his cravings, or to give him something else to concentrate on he used to chew on clove buds (in the form that you buy in the shops). That continued for as long as I knew him and now, every time I smell cloves, it reminds me of him. He never went back to the smoking, but who knows why he chose cloves as his method of quitting!

On a different note, I often travel with my job to tropical locations. The work often involves hours trudging through shrubbery and undergrowth, and I found that I often had the problem of insects running up my trouser legs! Even when I tucked the trouser legs into my socks, the little blighters would persist up the outside until they found a way in-eek! I usually take a small bottle of clove oil on trips with me, in case of tooth ache (when I usually put a couple of drops on a bit of cotton wool then stick it beside the troublesome tooth). Anyway, fed up with being a bug magnet, I decided to sprinkle some of the clove oil onto my socks to see if that would keep the bugs from marching up my legs from ground level and, miraculously, it seemed to work. I now use it each time I’m doing that sort of work – it has the added bonus of making my socks smell delightful!