This stressed writer is utterly convinced he is in the middle of a biblical plague . Why ? Because hordes of hairy caterpillars have taken over the house and surrounds , climbing up outside walls , getting inside , massing at the backdoor , appearing on the ceiling , popping up in books . They are crawling along the back verandah , galloping around the rim of buckets that catch rainwater .
Other wriggling critters -millipedes galore- have joined in the seething conga line . This afflcted blogger remembers a time , decades ago, when Adelaide, the city of churches , incurrred the wrath of God for some reason , and was subjected to a millipede plague , possibly blamed on Melbourne .
Go for a walk in the open and you blunder into hard to see spiderweb strands that formed en masse after recent rain as if to trap the many moths and flying ants that surfaced followed the deluge . From time to time, you discover a small spider dangling from your clothing while sitting, watching, swearing at Sky television, calling on God to strike down the after darkers with a blessed bolt of lightning , or begging Him to smite several of the crew with the jawbone of a large ass .
Now wasps and increasing numbers of other winged insects like the one seen on the left have joined the mix .
Crashing palm fronds add to the feeling that this is indeed some kind of divine punishment for the golden ,unGodly prose that appears in Little Darwin .
Thus far there has been no sign of creatures such as frogs , lice , flies and locusts that were part of those terrible biblical Egyptian plagues, but a trusty fly swat is available in the kitchen to defend the household .
Finally , after writing the above account of the rolling plague , it was decided to cut down low hanging fronds from an exotic palm tree at the front of the property because they slap you in the face as you walk by .
In the process, angry black wasps, of a kind not previously noticed buzzing about , were disturbed and stung me on the right ear and left hand . Hairy caterpillars were noticed crawling up the trunk . What next ? Did the biblical plagues run for seven years or seven generations ?
