I WAS watering the greenhouse this morning when something bit me on the neck. It wasn't a wasp, I'd probably have noticed that. It was a very small creature with a quick rapid of hand. Rather like an insect version of Paul Daniels. Small it might have been, but it hurt, and when I looked later I had a red mark which itched all day. This is just the latest attack of the killer insects on my person and it's annoying because there was a time that I was impervious to insects which seems to fly under, over and round me but never bothered to land and take a bite. So what happened? Have I become more succulent with old age? Like wine, improving with the years? I never used to be worried about biting insects. Gnats, midges, mosquitos, wasps or bees. I was once stung by a wasp, but that was just because one of my colleagues had swatted at it in the office, merely stunned it and it fell on the desk I was using and I leaned on it. I don't blame it for stinging me, it was probably fairly annoyed that this enormous creature was frantically fanning the air creating a wasp whirlwind, then it got swiped by a giant hand, ended up with a monumental headache and got leaned on by something else large and heavy. For heaven's sake, I'd bite someone if they did that to me. People who are frightened of wasps and bees, who actually never admit that they are afraid, always wave their arms around frantically, which must be about the silliest thing they can do because it seems to attract the homing missile instinct in the creatures who make, if you'll excuse the pun, a bee-line for the arm waver. Not that I blame people, because the sting was painful until someone rushed out and bought something called WaspEase. For me, not the wasp. Wasps I can take, I just avoid them and don't whirl, mosquitos are another matter. Whereas gnats and midges, or whatever those tiny creatures that mass at night in cool corners of the garden are, leave little red lumps, mozzies leave large itchy bumps which quickly develop into something which looks like the bubonic plague. I know people who suffer worse, swelling up alarmingly like barrage balloons, but even so in recent years I've grown to fear the buzz, so to speak. The worst place I've ever been bitten (no, this isn't going to be embarrassingly graphic about my person), the very worst place was, oddly enough, in Germany. I know northern countries do have problem with mosquitos but never really thought about it until one was locked in the cellar with me at night. I should explain that my being in the cellar wasn't a kind of son-in-law's revenge on a visiting mother- in-law, it was a perfectly habitable room with the added advantage of a door to the outside so I could nip out for a quick puff early in the morning. The interloper probably got in early in the morning because on the second night I woke up with four bites distributed about my person. The next night these were added to. Son-in-law mounted a full scale military search for the culprit but never found it and I wouldn't allow him to spray toxic stuff around. I transferred to the sofa and itched for the rest of the holiday. Two days after I returned I got a message to say my son-in-law had caught the blighter, probably by lying in wait in the evening wearing camouflage, but by then it was too late. Since then I seem to be a target for every mosquito in the vicinity. I've long ago given up bothering if anyone sprays or not. I spend holidays surrounded by citrus candles, little smoking bombs, an outdoor fire, various cans of allegedly deadly to mosquito poisons and the heady aroma of various creams, lotions and potions which are supposed to deter everything from rabid timber wolves to vampire bats. I've had advice from many quarters. Lemon juice, certain sorts of lemon skin lotion, taking calcium tablets, eating raw garlic – this will certainly keep everyone else away but the mozzies seem to love it. I've been told mosquitos like sweaty feet, so use a foot spray (they just move up to the ankles). I've used one of those things which are supposed to suck out the liquid they inject into you if you use it quickly enough, which left a red Dracula type mark as well as the swelling from the bite. My son, who is also a martyr to mozzies, says that they won't bite you if they can't land so if you use an electric fan at night you won't get bitten. Apart from the difficulty of finding a place to plug it in on the beach I've found that I obviously attract the type of mosquito which has undergone training to keep aloft in gale force winds and oh yes they can still bite. I now divide the world into places which have mozzies and those which don't and as we are well and truly into global warming (unless you are George Bush, who doesn't believe in it) probably nowhere is going to be safe eventually. The only real solution is to go on holiday when it's going to be really hot, by which I mean August. It is said that the little beasts can't cope with burning surfaces but knowing my luck I'll probably come across a new species which has developed asbestos clad feet. It did work in Beirut, but as soon as I got back on the boat in the early evening and sat on the deck a little wandering beastie, obviously just setting out for a cruise, got me. Some helpful little soul sitting nearby, the sort of person who always has gloom and doom information at his or her fingertips, said he hoped it wasn't a malarial mosquito and was just about to launch into an informative description of deadly malaria strains when I hastily got up and went in search of the calamine lotion and my brandy flask. One to rub on, one to drink, you work out which.

The joy of having moved from the gloomy old Cornish Times building into the splendidly refurbished Webb's Hotel, now Webb's House, is added to in my case by having not one but two windows in my office. It puts an entirely different aspect on the town, I've never appreciated The Parade before and how busy it is. The hot weather has brought out the annual arrival of the shorts and having a window to stare out of certainly gives me a good view of the parade on The Parade of sartorial splendour. Or not, as is usually the case. I sort of grade people. Those who shouldn't be allowed out of their front door in shorts, those who look reasonable from the front, but oh boy from the back!, those who look good in shorts and should be encouraged to walk past my window more than once, and those who must be wearing shorts for a bet. I think I'm fairly safe in this harmless pastime because I've never worn shorts and never intend to. I did once buy a pair and wore them once in the house but everyone fell about laughing, my daughter rang her sister to tell her the extraordinary news that mum may have been intending to go out in a pair of pale grey Bermuda shorts but now the danger seemed to have passed and I was going to give the offending item to Oxfam. Having a family who don't believe in little white lies is, I suppose, quite nice at times although it does occasionally take some swallowing of pride. So nobody's going to catch me in Lycra or floral monstrosities, unless, of course, I do it for a (substantial) bet.