THE ANTS CAME MARCHING TWO BY TWO

One of the small but significant things about living here in Sri Lanka is sharing our house with the ants. I don't think we ever had ants in our house in Australia and if we did, it was never in the numbers that we have here. There are ants in both of my kitchens; ants in the loungeroom; ants coming up the drain in the downstairs bathroom and, of late, ants walking all over my desk. I don't know what has suddenly attracted them to my desk and I would chase them away if it didn't seem so futile. When we first moved in we tried to combat the ants with ant powder and spray but we've come to see that it is a losing battle. Now we live peaceably with them, keeping as much food as we can in the fridge and making sure that you clean up really quickly after preparing any food. Oh, and of course there's the golden rule: always make sure you look at anything before you put it in your mouth.

Still, you learn a few things about ants. You learn that the only places they don't get into are the fridge and the oven (well, for now anyway!). You learn that they can move really quickly and they are determined. At the same time, you learn that they aren't that clever. They can work together to move a gigantic (well, in comparison anyway) crumb across the kitchen bench and then will work for hours, to get it through the flywire even though it's too big. And yet, they can still figure out how to work their way along the thread of a screw-lid container. You might think that things like sugar and honey would be their favourite but, surprisingly, this is not so. In fact, the honey is one of the few things that is safe in the cupboard - they have not tried for it at all. They would much rather peanut butter. However, this can not compare with their all-time favourite: cheese. Get some cheese out of the fridge and every ant everywhere will be running to your kitchen within seconds. Oh well, at least they're not charging me rent yet.