A few nights ago, in the middle of a cozy family viewing of Wicked, Lily got up to get something from the press. ‘Mum,’ she called from the kitchen. ‘There’re ants everywhere.’ We’ve had very few ants so far this summer – just one minor marching infestation that I’d quickly dispatched. I leave the comfort of the sofa to go investigate. To say I lost it would be an understatement. I swore at the ants. I shouted at them. I wished them nothing but back fortune. Our food cupboard had gone from zero ants to nothing but ants in the space of a few hours. I traced where they’d come from and found a line of the little blighters coming in via the top corner of the patio door. The patio door that had so valiantly kept them out last year, but now they’d found a way in. Mid-movie, I now found myself hot and bothered, feverishly swiping ants from around the honey jar, the bag of sugar, the jar of peanut butter. Every time I picked up a can or a jar, I found ants scurrying underneath, suddenly disturbed and running in circles, disturbed by this giant human who has lifted the roof off. The reason I’m so mad is that I know that once they’re in, they’re in, and the only thing that will get rid of them is autumn and the temperature dropping. Autumn’s a long time away.

I deal with the invasion as best I can and return to Wicked, all hot and bothered and the girls bemused by my over-the-top reaction to the ants. The next morning, I get up to find them all over my worktop. The morning after that on a crumb of bread I’d missed when sweeping the floor. Everything is an ant attractant – dishes not washed up immediately after use, the dog not eating her dinner quick enough (she’s a slow eater and sometimes can take a few hours to eat her food, so in summer I have to whip the bowl off the floor if she leaves it for more than 10 minutes). Every day I find them in some new place. And, I know the worst hasn’t happened yet, but it will, because it happens every year. There are two tiny gaps between tiles on my living room floor, just at the bottom of the stairs. Sometime, late July or early August of every year, they come pouring in there. One hot day, I’ll come into the living room to find a procession of ants pouring out of those two tiny gaps. I’ve tried filling the gaps, covering the gaps, pouring ant powder down the gaps. It doesn’t matter. Eventually, one way or another, they find their way into the house.

What bugs me about them (no pun intended) is that their presence forces me into action when I don’t want to do, don’t have time for, or that disturbs something else that I’m in the middle of. I’m not a natural ‘put everything away and wash everything up to sterile hospital conditions’ sort of person. But I live in a country that is, I’m pretty sure this is a scientific fact, 99% made up of ants. At least it seems that way at this time of year.

But now I’m taking a different approach. I’m channeling my old geography colleague Steve Hinchliffe’s work on conviviality, of living with and alongside nature. The ants are here for now. Like they’re here every year. Until it gets cooler. They have a job to do. When they’re not in my house, when I encounter them outside, I’m fascinated by them – their strength, the way they communicate with each other (what they say, I don’t know, but they clearly communicate, one going in opposite direction to the others in their procession), their tenacity, their ability to very quickly break down and get rid of the remains of dead animals and food. I’m grateful for the role they play in the ecosystem as decomposers and nutrient recyclers.

So, why should I feel differently about them when they come into my house? They’re not really doing any harm. They’re just doing their thing. And they’re simply forcing me to tidy up a bit more swiftly and not leave things out on the worktop. I’ve also come to the self-awareness that I’m less concerned about the ants being in my house than I am about what people might think if they came into my house and saw the ants. But everyone has ants at this time of year. I see them on other people’s worktops and floors and I don’t judge them. They’re part of our lives in summer in Spain. So, rather than getting mad at them I’ve decided to be more convivial towards them. Live with them by being a bit more swift and thorough in my cleaning. But I’m still likely to get mad at the kids when they leave an empty yogurt pot lying on its side on the kitchen table!