Country diary: Hornets and wasps are welcome here

There is usually a wasp nest annually in the loft, and we almost always manage to live with it. In this year’s greater depletion and absence of insects, there are two – one taking us by surprise after we’d been away for a week, announcing itself in rings of ochre staining around a light fitting. I take the ticking sound, at first, for a roof leak. In a narrow corner of the attic, the comb of the wasp nest is pressing beyond its space, the wasps solving their extension problem by chewing through the ceiling plaster.