Lord of the Flies
Now that summer seems to be a-coming in, midges and mosquitos are breeding like — well — flies. My morning ride is fine because it’s fairly early and the midges don’t seem to be swarming, but on the ride home, I have to wear sunglasses to avoid getting midges in my eyes every few minutes. I don’t mind getting a bug-splattered face, but flies in the eye hurt.
There’s one particular stretch by the river which is particularly infested. I was behind a little boy who was on a bike with training wheels in ‘Midge Alley’. He started flapping one arm around his head, while continuing to pedal at his top speed, and I knew exactly what he was doing. His arm-whirling got more and more frantic, until he hurled himself off his bike, thrashing the air around his head as if he was being assailed by invisible bees.
It was like watching some kind of pocket, low-budget action film. Like ‘Speed’ our hero has to keep his pedalling speed above 10 mph, or he will be devoured alive by midges! May contain scenes of Mild Peril.
1
Just be glad they are not Stag Beetles!
by Jonathan Briggs @ 16/04/2007 11:21 pm • Permalink •
2
Cycling beside an Oxford canal, I once managed to get one fly in each eye at the same moment. Not wanting to fly in with my camera and iPod in my pockets, I overcompensated in the other direction: ultimately getting thrown off my bike into a patch of nettles.
Insect-generated peril, indeed.
by Milan @ 17/04/2007 1:26 pm • Permalink •
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What is a MIDGE!?!?!
by specs @ 18/04/2007 3:43 pm • Permalink •
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A small gnat.......
by Jonathan Briggs @ 18/04/2007 6:26 pm • Permalink •
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I remember years ago walking the West Highland Way along Loch Lomond, and being assailed by the Scottish midge (which is far more ravenous that its English cousin). I have a picture of myself cooking the evening meal on a primus stove covered head to foot in my clothes, wearing balaclava, and gloves in order to minimise exposed skin. In Fort William I bought a book "The Scottish Biting Midge" which hypothesized that the biting midge was a major factor in why the Highlands are so sparsely populated. The other interesting fact I learnt is that it is only the female midge that bites you to get a blood meal.
by Keith @ 19/04/2007 11:20 am • Permalink •
6
Yeah. And they taste sweet. I think the worst place is up the nose. Why do they cluster at approximately head height?
I move country every few years, and I always start out with frightening reactions to the local mosquitoes. My immune system has finally made peace with the Maltese mosquitoes. I hardly react at all any more.
by Martin @ 24/05/2007 3:23 am • Permalink •
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