Summer in Scotland

When you think of summer in Scotland, what do you think of? Wild camps on hilltops and headlands, long days of big bike rides and hikes, watersports on beaches, festivals and community events, holidays and sunscreen?

Here's what I think of:

All the things that bite and sting that I draw like a magnet - midges, ticks, clegs, flies, wasps, mosquitoes and nettles. 

Local paths overgrown with vegetation making walking harder, sullen humidity, and a lack of sleep. 

The best flowers are over, birdsong has been replaced by the hum of insects, bluebottles are crawling over everything, and science promises us that climate change will make all these things worse.

I shudder to think how much worse some of these things are further south; the heat and the insects and the jungly vegetation are bad enough here in rural lowland Scotland.

You may love summer and regret its passing. But curmudgeon that I am, when the first cooler days come and the infernal itching dies down, I will be delighted. Roll on autumn! 

Escaping the heat in my local woods: