Squashy black flies

Thursday August 24, 2000

If you speak to anyone here about air conditioning in the home they’ll say something like: “It’s not hot often enough to warrant the expense.” That pathetic argument is a British disease. It was used against the introduction of domestic central heating — “It’s not cold often enough…” — and, outside the home, against safety-belts in coaches — “The safety statistics don’t warrant the expense…” and more things than I could list even if I knew them all. Which I don’t because most of them have been fixed now.

Now, if you feel strongly enough about it, you can be in advance of trends once you have your own home and responsibility for it. It costs a great deal, often enough, involving the importation of goods and materials from other countries. For instance, I have always insisted on having a bidet in the bathroom, long before they became commonplace here in Britain. Living on the Continent I’d learned civilised ways and brought them back with me. So the first bathroom we made was duly fitted with this ‘necessary’, as has every bathroom since, and I’ve answered the question so many times I’ve lost count. “But what’s it for?”?” It was expensive but worthwhile and, belatedly, the country has caught up with me and a bidet is now standard equipment in any domestic bathroom large enough for it. Why, even Building Regulations know about them. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had with the Building Regulations man when I first…

I mustn’t lose track, though. It’d never do to lose track.

When we set up this house I went a-hunting for supplies for another of the things we don’t do here in Britain yet– fly-screens. I’d learned of screen doors and such when I was in the States, and immediately determined they are a necessary of life. But not here, they’re not. Oh, you can get the framing, and the fittings, no problem at all. No, it’s the screen itself you can’t find and, five or six years ago, no matter how I widened the search, I couldn’t find the stuff in sizes, quantities and prices that made the application of at least a screen door to the kitchen a viable proposition. It’s not so now. Even our local ironmonger has a roll of the stuff. But it was then, so we shrugged and said, yes, you’ve guessed it: “Oh well, you don’t get plagues of flies that often.”

Today we have the first of the annual invasions of squashy black flies.

There I was, sitting at the kitchen table under the lamps, grooming Dolly the Mega-Cat and sort of watching the Last Days of the Reich or some-such on the TV in the corner. It was just getting dark, just the first traces, and I had the door wide open to let the cooler air in because, yes, another of those things, no air-conditioning. Apart from the subject matter of the TV programme, you couldn’t have wished for anything more blissful.

Plop! Plop, plop! Plop, plop, plop! In moments the table was spattered with disoriented flies of the black squashy sort.

Dolly leapt to her paws, aghast. I did the flip-flap-flop thing you do to your nose when you’re convinced a squashy black fly has landed on it and leapt for the door, shutting it tight against the marauding invaders.

Then I snapped the rest of the lights on to see the damage. Oh well, not so bad. I’ve seen worse.

As the lights came on the shock brought the remaining fliers crashing out of the air to land on every surface. I had no more than five minutes to tackle this lot before they recovered their wits and took to the air once more, so I headed for the big German vacuum cleaner fast and started scooping the nasty creatures up on the strongest setting. I learned, long ago, that it’s fatal to go bashing about with a towel, trying to flatten them. All you do is exhaust yourself, coax the little blighters back into the air where you can’t get at them, and make a filthy mess. Careful and speedy use of the vacuum however is a wonderful way of getting at them.

You don’t get them all, of course. For days now, even if there isn’t a repeat invasion, squashy black flies, dead and alive, will be turning up in all sorts of things and all kinds of places. It’s not so much a matter of holding the mayo as inspecting it very carefully and with great suspicion.

Will I rush out and get the makings for a screen door? Nah. You don’t get invasions of squashy black flies often enough… And, besides, we’re moving next year. And, besides, time we make it and put it up, the squashy black fly season will be over…

Well, I’m darn well going to have fly-screens on the next house, see if I don’t. Even if they have to be made and fixed in the middle of the winter.