Every year, for twenty four hours, the flying ants come. I remember this from childhood - great clouds of oversized winged insects, swarming up from the pavement cracks and the nooks and crannies in walls.

How is it that they are totally invisible all year around, and then for one day each summer they just go crazy and infest everything, coming pouring out of the paving stones?

Well, apparently, one calm hot muggy day after rain each summer, usually July or August, all the flying ants in one broad area release their males and fertile females, who then mate in mid air and then the males die. Lovely.

One of the good things about keeping a semi chronicle of life, such as a blog, is that you are easily able to see that there’s sometimes more of a pattern to life than we might imagine.

So I can see from my blog archives that in 2000, they arrived in London on 21 July, in 2001 it was 23 July, in 2002, 26 July and in 2003, 27 July.

It’s getting later every year. I wonder if there’s some deeply significant environmental message in that?

With such perfect predictability in mind, I predict that tomorrow will see me fighting my way through the swarms at lunchtime.

I hate the itchy feeling you get after you’ve walked through a swarm. I hate the fact that when I get inside I have to go to the loo, whip off my shirt and shake it, tousle my hair to make sure none have caught. I hate that I feel every little itch and whisper of moving hair as a potential ant crawling up my trouser-leg.

Are you itching yet? I am.

I think it all goes back to growing up in Nigeria - one day in mid summer, I climbed up a little hillock - more of an earth-mound, I suppose - to get a better view of a coming electrical storm. Turned out it wasn’t a hill, though, but a termite nest, which collapsed under my toddler weight, and landed me inside. Two people had to reach in and pull me out. I’ve always hated creeepy crawly things since them. Yeaaaaargh.

I’ll keep you posted.

inspired by Peter’s brush with the winged bastards