Hello all, I grew up in Fort Bill and have this beautiful face because I spent most of that time with tights on my head.

In the adolescence, never saw anyone getting nibbled when they were doused in Lynx.

I still wear tights on my head.

Smidge seems to work really well and it doesn’t go for plastics and dyes the way that DEET does. That property of DEET puts me off. There are too many synthetic materials and plastic components on bikes and clothing to worry about (like prescription Oakleys at £250 a pop).

I was chatting to someone from Smidge on Saturday, trying to persuade them to bring out a gel or bar as that would be more attractive to the lightweight crowd. They are also going to be launching a “similar” product marketed as a general insect repellent. The Smidge name is good but does lead one to believe that it’s only for the midge.

You tried the smidge then Druidh? I have some but have not been swarmed by midges since I got it last year

DEET is foul stuff – but it does work.

Aye – the Smidge was in action last summer. Best example was on the banks of the Spey waiting to get into a raft. Everyone else was hopping around trying to avoid them, then jumping in the river. We were fine.

Nice to know – ta. Maybe it was the lynx tho.

I’ll try anything once, so will give Smidge a go, but the only thing that’s ever worked for me has been Deet. Yes, it melts plastic watches and sunnies and takes the print off foil chocolate bar wrappers, but it just works.

Weirdly, after a lifetime of holidays on the West coast and despite spending a lot of time at my folks’ place on Skye, the worst midges I’ve ever encountered were at the Keilder campsite – wide valley, slow-running river and a sunny windless evening. My reaction to the millions of bites was so bad, that a week later I had to take the Newcastle to Sunderland metro with blood streaming down my legs and staining my jeans!

But I’ve never seen clouds of them like I saw in Sligichan a few years ago… Fortunately, we were in a camper van and just stuffed clothes into every tiny gap and entrance. The windows were quite literally black with midges and we pissed into bottles – there was no way that door was getting opened 😯

Moving about is fine, when you stop, make sure you are covered head to toe and have a hood up. spray your hair and hood with deet(don’t get that stuff anywhere near your mouth though, tis disgusting.)

Official camp sites are horrible, elsewhere, sit about for a minute or 2 before picking a spot and you’ll soon know if you should move on or not.

Moving about usually works but isn’t foolproof. I stupidly failed to apply repellent when doing 10 under the ben a few years ago. Riding through thick clouds of the feckers near the end of the course. Counted over 400 bites on one leg, the other leg didn’t look much different.

Worst places from memory are Inversnaid, Minard in Argyll and camping by the Kingshouse in Glencoe. Black swarms of evil, all of them.

PS Jungle Formula will dissolve the strap of a Polar HRM and any nylon flysheet it encounters. God knows what it does to skin.

When I was an apprentice, I was sent away with a few lads on an outward bound week up near lock Eil, nr fort william. on the second night of our hiking expedition we erected our tents on the side of a hill and decided to cook higher up where there was a little wind to try and escape the midges that had plagued us for days. All was going well until we noticed one of the tents smoking away down the hill.

Macca must have flicked his cig to near the flysheet! We legged it down the hill to put the thing out, but as we neared the tent I realised that was no smoke but a swarm of frickin midges! Unable to stop for our momentum and the gradient of the hill, we ran right through the lot. No jungle juice would have saved us from the proceeding feast. Needles to say I’ll not be returning in midge season ever again.