Country diary: the sharp side of inflammatory season

Easton on the Hill, Northamptonshire: On a family walk, I learn at first hand the the nasty and fiercely efficient work of the female horseflySomething clamps the skin on my right arm and I look to see: a flattened arrow, ashy coloured and the size of a fingernail, is on my forearm. Reflexively I shove it off. It leaves a swelling globe of blood behind, and I peer at it. “Horsefly,” my wife says.It’s a hot day. A walk outside the bewitching village of Easton on the Hill on a ro