Country Life
By IAN NIALL
AN expression of wisdom concerning the falling of rain on the just and the unjust involves a cliché, but
there is equal truth in a remark about the activities of insect pests. The midges of the Western Highlands attack tourist and resident with impartiality, and
the holiday resort fly is equally indifferent as to the sort of person it plagues. It does, however, find an acreage of visitor skin much in excess of purely native pelt, and accordingly the visitor bemoans the nuisance much more. A heatwave plague of flies has once again descended upon my part of the world. A mile or two away people are said to have had to walk into the tide to eat their picnic sandwiches in peace. Others, pestered almost beyond endurance, have said hard words and talked of taking them- selves off. Registering complaints indeedt exclaim local partisans on hearing that information bureaux and such places are being asked to take note that there are at times more flies to the equivalent diameter of bald pate than currants in an Eccles cake. Doesn't the fly bother the native just as much? Logic is undeniable, and the visitor from inland parts mutters that he, at least, can go somewhere else. He has second thoughts, however, for it turns out that he hasn't gone. By noon the flies mysteriously vanish and all is forgiven. In any case, it may rain tomorrow in inland Lancashire. It sometimes does, as everyone knows.
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