This Bug is bitten by more than country life bug
LIVING in the country sometimes exposes you to more than fresh air and friendly locals. Because it turns out that not just human characters can be larger than life as a result of living close to the land, but also creepy crawlies. Maybe that’s why I’m currently on a three-week course of antibiotics, after a seven-day course before Christmas failed to budge an infection from a nasty bug bite.
I’m awaiting blood test results to see if it could be Lyme Disease, which is apparently on the rise in Ireland. Though if something sinister got under my skin, it was serendipity that I happened to have an appointment with a skin doctor who reckons the bite is likely the wicked handiwork of a horsefly.
There is certainly no shortage of those aggressive insects around this neck of the woods. These little, but lethal creatures, have chased me down country lanes on occasion, reminding me of the Dalai Lama’s words “if you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito”. Or hanging out near horseflies, for that matter.
Indeed, Alfred Hitchcock could have made a sequel to movie classic The Birds called ‘The Bugs’, for so many people are creeped out by creepy crawlies. Maybe the fact that one of my nicknames is ‘Bug’ means they view me as an oversized kindred spirit.
Because it’s not just horseflies that have a go; two tics got stuck into me in West Cork a few years ago. Ignorance was bliss as I scratched off their bloated black bodies, only realising what they were in horrified hindsight. I have also morphed into Little Miss Muffet many times, though on a bed and not a tuffet, finding spiders of all sizes, and even a wasp, waiting under my sheets. Midges are a mild-weather nightmare, making me flap my arms about like I’m having a fit if I accidentally walk into a swarm of these tiny terrors.
I can manage the little moths that munch on the woollens in my wardrobe, but either the monster ones, or me, have to leave the house, ever since the night one flew up my nose. You read that right. Believe me, the sensation of giant insect wings frantically beating against your nostril is not one for the bucket list. Thankfully, our mutual panic prompted his speedy exit.
Though it looks like the insect population, as a whole, is following suit, given it is decreasing by 2.5pc per year. This could trigger a “catastrophic collapse of the Earth’s ecosystems”, according to a study last February. If this trend continues unabated, the Earth may not have any insects at all by 2119.
Which means we, in turn, won’t so much creep or crawl, as hurtle like the hammers towards extinction. So best heed David Attenborough’s recent warning to “look after the natural world, and the animals in it, and the plants in it too. This is their planet, as well as ours. Don’t waste them.”
For horseflies are as much part of the web of life as humans, and neither one is supposed to behave like the queen bee.