Watch the Skies!

Chatting to a neighbour the other day I noticed he had what looked like toothpaste smeared on the side of his neck. He noticed me noticing and explained that he had felt a sudden pain on that spot and on putting his hand up had found a brown moth there. What I had mistaken for toothpaste was actually savlon and he had removed a small bit of said moth from his neck. He was a tad disconcerted and my repeated references to vampire moths and that it was all doubtless something to do with global warming may not, with hindsight, have been helpful. He had not kept the rest of the moth and what with me not being an lepidopterist I have no idea what it was but I have to say, a moth seems unlikely. A horse fly maybe? I remember being bitten by them a few times many summers ago while camping on one of the Inner Hebrides and it is surprisingly painful. They are brown but not, to my memory, particularly moth-like, but maybe my neighbour has not been to as many moth farms as I have (three) or keeps his windows open on warm nights which brings them in. I hope it was not a moth because I like them and I would, on the whole, rather not spend the rest of my days in a constant and ultimately futile war with them or, even worse, an abusive relationship with one that sparkles. I probably wouldn't even get a truck out of it. The question is also raised of whether my neighbour, having been bitten, will now himself transform into one. Should I warn his girlfriend? How do you start a conversation like that? ‘So all well? Has T------ taken to circling the lamp while you’re trying to read? ... No, no particular reason. Are you fluttering more than you used to?’ I couldn’t say any of that. I’d be ASBOed.