Midgification

One of the main challenges of a highland summer are the midges.

We’re luckier than most being at the top of a windy hill. Midges can’t fly in winds of more than 6mph, apparently, so we pray daily for a good, brisk wind.

Many has been the warm, sunny evening when we would have brought out the firepit and barbecued long into the night if it weren’t for the midges. Once they start flying there’s no escape and no respite. The worst of it is that we want to sleep with the caravan windows thrown open on these warm summer nights, but we can’t without swarms of the little horrors coming in to plague us.

We smother ourselves in Smidge and don our midge net hats to try and avoid the worst of them. I’m counting the months until temperatures dip enough to kill them off. By September, I’m hoping.

The other downside of the croft in the summer with the proximity of neighbouring livestock is horseflies. The locals call these Clegs. I’ve been bitten several times by these horrible things whilst working on the croft, and unlike midge bites, they’re huge and need disinfecting. They land like ninjas, incredibly softly, so that you don’t notice them until they’ve started scissoring away a circle of skin from you.

Husband took a picture of this one on the caravan window a few days ago. It was a good inch and a half long, the same size as a hornet. It was probably a Giant Dark Horsefly, and although I don’t think anything this large has landed on me, I shudder to think of this airbus of the fly world anywhere so near to hand..