I recently spent a week in Spain to celebrate the marriage of a good friend’s son. We had a wonderful few days staying at a hotel near the north-eastern city of Girona, close to the French border.
I was given a lovely spacious room, but noticed soon after arriving a large number of shieldbugs crawling up the net curtains and around the panes of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Sheildbugs are common in the UK as well as in Spain, and are so-called because of their hard wing cases which are similar in shape to a knight’s shield.
Although I’m not a huge fan of multi-limbed creepy crawlies, I don’t like killing bugs unnecessarily, and so tried to shoo them outside. However, often when I came close, they would plummet dramatically from the curtain to the floor. Those fortunate enough to land on their feet would attempt to crawl to safety. Those that landed the wrong way up were unable to right themselves, and would flail their legs helplessly in the air until I, suppressing my squeamishness, scooped them up and chucked them outside.
The solution of course would have been to close the windows, but the temperature was at that really pleasant level, like a late Spring day in the UK, too warm to keep the windows closed but not warm enough to warrant shutting them and switching on the air con.
After a couple of days, I came to realise that these bugs were content to stay around the windows, rather than venture further into the room where they’d be really annoying. So I kept the windows open and, like a stream of passengers arriving on and departing from a station platform, some wandered in while others found their way out. But I learned to just leave them be, and we rubbed along together quite happily. Occasionally, one would bravely launch itself into the air to do a late-night circuit around the ceiling, but it would soon realise how scary it was, and quickly retreated back to the safety of the curtain folds.
They didn’t strike me as particularly clever, especially when compared to a posse of ants I found by the swimming pool later in the week.
After the wedding, I was able to spend a couple of days relaxing in the sun. I also managed to pick up another bug – that of the fluey kind. This is known as the Law of Sod, because when you are far too busy to get ill for the rest of the year, it will get you when you have a rare chance to stop and chill out.
While lying lethargically on a sunbed, I noticed a busy colony of ants on the ground below, furiously trotting back and forth along a straight line of sandy grout between the paving slabs surrounding the pool. Someone had dropped a few pastry crumbs, and the industrious army was collecting up the scraps and ferrying them back to the nest which, judging by the level of activity, seemed to be through a tiny a gap between a couple of slabs.
Moving closer, I could see that these insect soldiers never stopped, some working independently to find a crumb, others working in unison to drag a piece together.
I noticed that one particular ant had found a large flake of filo pastry about 10 times its size. It was a struggle, but with some support from his friends, he diligently dragged it to the hole, only to find his prize was too big to fit!
But that plucky wee soldier was damned if he was going give up. He tried manoeuvring it every which way to try to get it to fit. I went back to my reading, then shut my eyes, had a little snooze, and then when I woke up, he was still there, absolutely determined to bring home this hard-earned booty. Every so often, he’d take it away, and bring it back to try again.
I was fascinated by his persistence and he was still going when I finally left. I did go back the next day, and there were no crumbs left on the floor at all.
I’m hoping that our little friend eventually got his prize back to the nest and was treated to a well-earned pastry dinner.
Do you have opinions, memories or ideas to share with me? Get in touch with me using the ‘Contact’ button on the top right.
This column appeared in the Darlington & Stockton Times on Friday 23rd Oct and the Ryedale Gazette and Herald on Wednesday 21st Oct 2026
