Wasp warfare

8.50 pm. I have just sealed up all the holes in the floor with parcel tape, in case there is a nest under the floorboards. There is only one hole remaining that I know of, and that is the one the phone cable comes through. I have moved the bag that was in front of it and left it in plain view, so that I shall be able to see anything that dares to emerge.

Meanwhile, I am in a state of siege, imagining buzzings all over the place, even though I know they are coming from the boiler and the TV. Wasps in December! There are more around now than there were in August. Perhaps it's my pheremones.

Once, I stayed overnight in a flat, having been given the key by the owner, who had left for his Xmas hols the day before me, and who lived handily close to Euston station. He assured me that his cockcroach problem had been cured, that the fumigator had recently been and he hadn't seen one since. I fell into a blissful sleep, only to be awoken an hour or so later by a stealthy tippy-tapping and there was Daddy Cockroach coming out from under the skirting board, followed by Mummy and several babies. I reached for my trainer and smashed so hard that I blatted them flat. Then I left the corpses on the kitchen worktop so that my friend could see the evidence with his own eyes. He couldn't believe it. He didn't see another one during the next three years that he lived there. He said it must have been my pheremones attracting them. Perhaps (awful thought) it's the same with wasps...