There’s a lot of formication going on at my place at the moment. It’s a condition which should not be confused with fornication, which is something quite different (if you don’t appreciate just how different, the right kind of therapy will improve your sex life beyond your wildest dreams).

​Formication, from the Latin for ant, is the feeling that insects are crawling over your skin, a tactile hallucination which can be a symptom of fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, drug withdrawal or severe anxiety.
 
In my case, it isn’t the anxiety that’s causing the formication. It’s the formication that’s causing the anxiety. And it’s no hallucination. Over the last month or so, implacable hordes of Argentinian ants have invaded my home.

It’s bad enough to find them in the dog’s bowl, the microwave, or swarming on the bench. It’s really infuriating to have them crawling and nipping at you in bed, or clambering up your arms and down your neck when you are innocently reading a book or working at the computer. 

In an effort to find a peaceful solution - Donald Trump take note - I’ve circulated the following Open Letter in English and Spanish to all ants:

It was the curious incident of the dog (almost) exploding in the night time which suggested to me a revolutionary way to improve science teaching in New Zealand. I have high hopes that our new Labour-lead government will be eager to trial the idea I am about to propose.  

First, some background.I did poorly in maths and science at school although my failure can't be attributed entirely to the education system: I spent a lot of class time digging holes into lab benches with the spiked end of a compass, or melting ballpoint pens over a Bunsen burner.

It might even be possible that my brain function was reduced by mercury poisoning. The  dental nurse at my primary school rewarded us for not screaming blue murder during her ministrations by giving us a drop of mercury in a little plastic box. Returning to class with stretched lips and a mouth full of amalgam, you'd would immediately tip out the mercury for the fun of watching it roll about your desktop.

It was by observing the melting, silvery, slither of the mercury that I learned what “mercurial” actually meant.

​I believe that if such connections between real life and taught fact had been forged more frequently in science classes of my youth, ​​I might now be in charge of the Hadron Collider or the recipient of a Nobel Prize for mathematics. 

Which brings me back to the incident of the (almost) exploding dog which occurred last week ...

​​I’ve always found the “For Dummies” books enormously helpful at watershed moments in my life: I’ve still got the tear-stained copy of Acne for Dummies which helped me survive my teens.

Potty Training for Dummies and Existentialism for Dummies made me a better mother. I owe my robust health to Medical Dosage Calculations for Dummies.

My finances are considerably healthier too, thanks to Hedge Funds for Dummies, Exchange-Traded Funds for Dummies (Australia and NZ Edition) and Success as a Real Estate Agent for Dummies. And of course, I wouldn’t be the well-adjusted person I am today, without Borderline Personality Disorder for Dummies, and the Personal Development Box Set for Dummies. 

Now that my daughter is completely self-toileting, I’m blemish-free and filthy rich through lucrative investment and real estate deals, I’ve found myself with a surprising amount of time on my hands. I consulted Making the Most of Retirement for Dummies and Dementia for Dummies on the matter. They suggested that I should take up a new hobby to fill the empty hours and give my life meaning. There was no shortage of options in the “For Dummies” back catalogue although I made a few misguided choices before I discovered the guide that would change everything. Become More Mindful in a Day for Dummies for example, only kept me busy for about 24 hours. Ditto Rugby Union Basics in a Day for Dummies. 

I found it impossible to summon enthusiasm for crochet or coin-collecting. Depressingly, I even found star-gazing, beer-making, beehive building and bird-watching of little interest. I was about to burn my copy of Living Longer for Dummies when I stumbled upon Drones for Dummies and my life took a sudden turn for the better. 

A friend recently lent me a collection of Spectator columns written in the 1980’s by English novelist Alice Thomas Ellis. They were still very funny and I polished them off in a sitting. 

However the columnist in me was awfully envious of the raw material Alice had at her disposal. She had a publisher husband who was also a brilliant Oxford classicist, many children, a house in London (plus boa constrictor), a house in Wales, a faithful family retainer and lots of weather of the sleet and snow variety. She also had cigarettes, booze and Catholicism and was mates with Kingsley Amis, Oliver Sacks, Iris Murdoch, and Beryl Bainbridge (more of whom later).

All I’ve got is one ex-husband, one child, a small flat in Nelson (plus Fox Terrier), a benign climate and atheism. Not a faithful family retainer anywhere. A lesser person might have sunk into rue and envy of Alice’s literary life in London but an examination of my own small life soon turned up something uniquely mine. Poor Alice probably had to rely on black cabs and the Tube to get around. But I have a scooter.

New Zealand’s recent admission to the United Nations Security Council has mired me in a swamp of moral ambiguity. It’s cost the country millions in lobbying, sweet-talking and outright pleading to be allowed onto the Council beside the U.S.A. 

I don’t want to be the one to jeopardise this costly entente cordiale by de-establishing my own anti-terrierist programme. 

On the other hand, since I have been eating a Paleo diet, I and my Fox Terrier Pete (the subject of the detainment and surveillance) have grown very close. We now share far more than an interest in long walks and lying about on couches. We have formed a very deep bond through our shared interest in eating plenty of meat and gnawing on bones.

Whether you wear Glassons or Gucci, sweat-shop, opp-shop or Top Shop, your clothes say something about you even if you wish they’d keep quiet about it. Winter clothing is even more problematic if, like me, your thermophysiology tends to the cold-blooded. 

Keeping warm while simultaneously maintaining a toehold on the ladder of sartorial acceptability can be very taxing. Unless, that is, you embrace a whole new fashion paradigm and become an afashionista.

Being an afashionista involves inhabiting a self-invented sartorial Never Never Land where clothes are worn purely for comfort, warmth and practicality and not a single item of clothing has to be smart, sexy, cool, classy or on-trend. It’s the very opposite of haute couture: the land where the natives wear sensible shoes and relaxed-fit clothing with elasticised waistbands in easy-care fabrics. Within this gap in the fashion spectrum high-waisted, pleat-fronted, stone-washed jeans are perfectly acceptable. So are Crocs worn with rugby socks and baggy grey track pants. In the land of Warm’n’Comfy bulky is the new svelte, ugly is the new beautiful. 

Let me set the scene. It was growing dark and I was returning from a dog walk with a very muddy Fox Terrier in the car when I first noticed the car-wash. Anyone familiar with my car knows that normally, a car-wash is way below my attention threshold. However, I do have a sensitive nose and on the evening in question the car reeked of wet dog. When I got home I would either have to wrestle a filthy and reluctant dog into the shower or spend the night breathing parfum de mutt through clenched teeth. Therefore the modest sign at the carwash advertising DIY Dog Wash blazed at me from the gloom like neon Eldorado.