HAPPINESS. Much coveted, but often elusive. Just how do you capture it? Well, it seems beautiful surroundings and community spirit are a good start.

New research has found that people living in the Highlands and Islands are the happiest in Scotland. The region came top in the latest Bank of Scotland Happiness Index, with the natural environment and sense of community credited with helping to boost residents’ cheerfulness.

This is great news. But things could change. Also reported last week was news that the notorious Highland biting midge is forecast to appear in “bumper numbers” in the next few weeks.

According to the scientists behind the Scottish Midge Forecast, this expected superswarm is a result of the first of this year’s hatchings occurring in May, two weeks earlier than usual. The cause of these early hatchings? That’ll be the warmer-than-usual temperatures. Oh, bitter irony. The sun gives with one hand, only to take away with the other.

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Perhaps the best we can hope for is that the rest of the Scottish summer is cold enough to keep the wee monsters at bay. This is not beyond the realms of scientific possibility.

Just as well Scots are made of stern stuff, equally well versed in shrugging off inclement weather as midgies with tackety boots.

During childhood holidays, I recall that an Aran knit and wellies were standard beachwear and that, instead of sun lotion, you were way more likely to be reaching out for the calamine lotion once the midgies had eaten you alive.

Reports claim midgies cost Scottish tourism £286 million a year, with many visitors vowing never to return at the same time of year as the midgies.

Dr Alison Blackwell and her team at the Scottish Midge Forecast have put midge numbers in the Highlands and Islands at 139 billion.

And she warns those who fantasise about a midge-free Scotland not to get their hopes up.

“To get rid of them you would have to change Scotland’s landscape, and that is not going to happen,” she said. “I am afraid they are here to stay.”

Thankfully Scots, being inventive types, have all manner of strategies to defy the midge. There are machines that suck the fiendish critters out of the air, “magnets” that trap the female midge (for it is only she who bites), having lured her to her death by “exhaling” pheromones that she finds irresistible. There are lotions and potions and, for those seeking sartorial solutions, there are bug-proof shirts and ever-so-stylish hats with nets.

And if all of these fail, we could always just get angry.

You see, Scotland isn’t alone in its annual scratch-fest. In Iceland, so vicious are the midgies that one of the country’s lakes, Lake Mývatn, is named after the creature – mývatn is Icelandic for midge.

So nasty are these Nordic midgies, that they have inspired a song. Icelandic musician Nazarus has composed a little number called Biting Midges.

He explains his inspiration: “There is a good reason for this song. I wrote it in a fit of rage. I got very angry and hurt and started composing.”

So there we go – another strategy. How about The Desperate Battle Of The Midgies, set to the bagpipes? That’s bound to scare them off.