Hooray for tea tree oil!

I wrote a post yesterday and blogger insisted that it didn't publish it and then I lost it. I swear it wasn't on there today and when I wrote a shortened version on this post, I look and there it is! So I've taken it out again, cos my life's not so interesting that you want to read about it twice! Anyway, I've come late to a particular book and I know others rave about it but I havn't been so engrossed since I read 'The Time Traveller's Wife' and I urge everyone to go out and read 'The Lovely Bones' because it's a fantastic story, terribly tragic (it's narrated from heaven by a murdered girl) and by god did I weep but it's an incredibly good read. I'm also in love with tea tree oil. It's my new best friend. I attempted to become a true blue aussie last night as a few friends and I threw some prawns on a barbie down at the Esplanade whilst drinking beer. Unfortunately the sandflies decided to drink me, despite the large quantities of insect repellant I had sprayed on. I woke up this morning and scratched my arm without thinking, looked down and thought 'bugger'. Bites all up my forearms, and as I'd just scratched them, they were starting to all come out with a vengence. The hairdresser who cut my hair the other day had suggested lavender oil or tea tree oil instead of synthetic gels or creams and in desperation I had gone out and got some. Five minutes after application, not only did I smell lovely and cleared my sinuses quite effectively but there is not a single sign of bites on my arms. Not one. They don't even itch anymore. Given my usual reaction to sandfly bites (swell up, itch a lot, turn a nasty shade of red that makes people think I've got a horrible disease) this is incredible! I'm never going anywhere without it again!