Aliens in the Attic

Yesterday's piece was on the subject of a wasps nest.

Today's is on the same subject.

I do not apologise for this as I find it a fascinating and marvellous creation in nature.

I do have first hand experience of the hazards associated with the residence of a swarm in that I had the misfortune to put my foot through one. A neighbour with whom I am not normally on speaking terms even after sharing a fenced boundary for over 18 years drew my attention to the expanded size of my compost heap. It was a tidy example, just about restrained within a compound formed by two of those metal mesh fire surrounds favoured by the parents of infants and toddlers. Intertwined and with wire twist fixings it was quite sturdy and allowed me to pile on the waste from a demanding garden whilst allowing air to circulate and dry it out.

As with many middle aged men amongst whom I number there is quite a feeling of anticipation over the slow drying of grass, leaves and bits of tree towards that critical point when they are fantastically combustible. Stoking and feeding a good smokey, slow burner is a tremendous way for a man to spend an evening and with the added bonus of annoying said incommunicative neighbours if sat out on a social on their patio downwind.

In the pursuit of good neighbourly relations, although reminiscent of perhaps North and South Korea, I agreed to do something about the heap but that was sufficiently vague to pacify them beyond the western fence and not place too much pressure on myself to action anything.

A few weeks later, in an idle moment my sense of philanthropy set in and I attacked the compost mound with fork and an array of garden waste bags. It just seemed like a standard accumulation of organic stuff.

I was enthusiastic and clambered up the slope to get a good fork full but my right leg suddenly plunged through a soft spot and it was only my groin area that stopped any further plummet to what could as easily have been the centre of the earth.

I knew about the presence of rose bush cuttings amongst the soft stuff but the sharp and painful stabbing sensation was something else that I had a vague childhood memory about.

I had unwittingly fallen through a crusty layer into a large subterranean wasps nest and eight of the occupants, evidently on guard duty, exacted their wrath on my hairy lower leg.

The injection of poison from eight barbs soon caused my limb to swell up to grotesque proportions, so much so that I could have been understudy to The Elephant Man.

I was aware of people going into shock and dying from wasp stings and was suitably concerned but managed to resume normal bodily proportions within a matter of hours.

Since that event, for which I received no commendation or recognition from the neighbours I have been more respectful for the artistry of the wasp architects but still a little curious.

A small dessicated nest was found in the rafters of my garage and after carefully disecting it, although not a complex operation due to it's tissue paper fragility , I could appreciate the work that had gone in to it by some of the natural worlds most maligned insects. The matrix of structured cells and connecting passages, even in miniature, was rigid and stable, perfectly functional and I would imagine it to be pretty cosy.

I was therefore intrigued by the discovery just a couple of days ago of what is the biggest wasps nest I have ever seen under the rear slope of a house roof. In Science Fiction Films the same sized cocoon like form usually incubates an alien.

The old lady who owned the house had lived there 50 years and admitted to never having gone into the attic in all of that time. This had created the perfect environment for the unrestricted access and activities of a wasp city, a metropolis of busy creatures.

It was shaped like an upturned tear being secured across three rafters and spreading out over as many ceiling joists to a distance of 2 metres from the eaves.

The wasps will have entered at will from the gap between the lowest course of roof tiles and the guttering. The home to possibly thousands of wasps it certainly appeared to be capable of.

Being an inquisitive type I picked up some bits of rubble lying around on top of the old lath and plaster ceilings and lobbed them, using the light from my torch as a beacon, towards the ghostly mass. The third piece of sand and cement torching hit the grainy surface of the nest and made a strange sound as though being absorbed into mud.

I listened for any reactive sound from the wasp militia on duty but there was nothing. After a couple of minutes and as many more missiles thrown in the direction of the blob I lost interest and retreated down my ladders to the landing and pulled shut the loft hatch.

I found the old lady behind me at the foot of the ladder. She had heard a rumpus and was checking to see either if I was alright or more likely had caused any damage to her property.

I explained that conditions in an old loft space were often unstable and noisy and she seemed happy at that. As we made our way downstairs and for that long promised cup of tea I thought that I heard, above our heads, the beginnings of a distinct and growing crescendo of buzzing.