Last time we were over, a few weeks ago, I was bitten about 7 times during the second night on my arm. the bites were hardly noticable but then my arm swelled up around the bites turning red in an ever widening circle, I looked like Popeye!

We do have tiny jumping spiders and I do know a few folk who are allergic to their bites

These were not mozzie bites, as I am allergic to those and come up it blisters.

The cleg or horsefly bites I used to get in the U.K. are something else, blisters the size of egg yolks.

Was never bitten by a mozzie this time except in Malaga airport coming home, still have the remnants of the bites on my foot. talk about getting the last bite in

Having done a little more research,the nearest I can find to your description is the stable fly.
Love the sunshine,feed of animal life and breed in garden rubbish etc.
I take a bashing from something very similar in Sweden every Summer,where they compete with the squadrons of mossies and hossflies, to see which can inflict most damage.
Rarely go out without my beekeepers outfit at the height of Summer,its so bad.
In some towns a little further North ppl.are virtual prisoners in their own houses.

one of these?

Looks like it, yeah.

If they breed in garden rubbish, I wonder if that has anything to do with why the people round here don't compost?

As a confirmed townie, but now with a 1,000 metre garden in the hot sun, I've gotten used to some of those terrifying things that slither, crawl and fly around to frighten me. I let them get on with it in the garden, but fight them in the house, with sprays, powders, traps, and other weapons.

The flies have arrived early this year and I'm currently trying Chinese fly paper. They stick to it and I've just had a look, but they appear to be the non-stinging black ones. I would imagine the brown ones would stick to the fly paper too. The Chinese shops sell them.

The downside of fly paper is that on a hot day, the glue weakens and flies can pull thenselves free. They then land on the wall and stick there till they die. Getting them off is pretty vile.

If you google fly killing pen, there's a rentokill product. You apply the clear liquid where the flies land, like the bottom of the window pane, or the ends of flouro tubes where the flies land, and if a fly gets one leg on it he's dead within a minute or two.

Fantastic stuff. In normal domestic use, a pen will last up to a year, if you remember to put the cap back on each time, and not use it on dirty, dusty surfaces.

Last year my daughter bought me a tennis-racket-like swatter with a fine wire mesh in place of the strings, connected to a couple of batteries so the insects immediately get fried on contact.
Good fun, but 3 or 4 smashed ornaments later I thought its back to the old swatter,(I'm back here in UK at present).
So went to the local shops and market,..not a swatter to be seen,..but came across some little plastic guns at 50p each on the market for shooting the beggars down.
Looks like a cheap kids toy,but its marked not for children.
It consists of a pistol grip with a 3inch dia plastic mesh disc with central rod as ammunition,which is pushed and spring loaded into the barrel ready to fire.
Not had a great deal of luck with it up till now, but I notice the cat and dog have decided to retire to bed early for some strange reason.

Re mozzies rather than flies. We buy from Mercadona small half inch pactches that you stick on the inside of your wrist - I suppose they work on the same principal as No Smoking Patches - They come in a small 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 yellowish envelope called 'NOMOSQITOS' and contain 24 patches you can peel off and stick on your skin.

Have used them for two years now and find them very effective. (For mozzies that is not stopping smoking!!)

www.swatthefly.co.uk for the bat. I use it and it is very effective.

How very interesting. I wonder if they work by giving off a chemical that is absorbed by the body making you less palatable?

I shall have to see if they are available in our mercadonna.

Got one, or one very similar, brilliant

The price is outrageous.....before wemoved from Hong Kong we bought a whole load of these bats about 30 of them all priced at HK$ 15.00 which is about 1 POUND

Came across this. It's a dorsal comparison between the stable fly and the house fly.

You can imagine how hard it is to tell them apart, especially when they don't stay still for long.