Why the mild winter and wet spring adds up to swarms of mosquitoes itching to bite you
We may moan about our climate, but at least it generally keeps the English summer relatively free of biting insects.
This year, however, we won't be so lucky.
A mild winter and wet spring has created ideal breeding conditions for midges and mosquitoes - and the pests won't miss the opportunity to make their presence felt.
Skinvader: A mosquito bites
Experts have predicted an influx of the Culicoides midge, usually only found in Scotland.
And the conditions we've experienced have also encouraged the spread of mosquitoes.
As a result, sales of insect repellent have risen by 80 per cent year on year.
A spokesman for Boots said: 'The volume of people coming into stores with insect bites so early in the summer is very unusual.
'Generally, July and August are the key months for pest prevention, but these environmental conditions have meant that the season has started much earlier than normal.'
Paul Pearce-Kelly, senior curator of invertebrates at the Zoological Society of London, explained: 'It's the combination of wet weather followed by warmer conditions that encourages the greater numbers.
'Changing weather patterns and milder winters are creating conditions more favourable to mosquito breeding.
'We are seeing a trend of an increasingly favourable climate here to mosquitoes.
'Normally the biting winters in Britain would kill everything off, but now we are seeing much milder conditions which means we are becoming more vulnerable to these pests.
'Increased travel - not just of humans but of cargo too - is also producing an environment in which mosquitoes flourish.'
Mosquitoes are not hatched carrying malaria or other parasitic diseases, but they can become carriers if they bite someone who is already infected.
The bloodsucking insects then transmit the parasite to the next victim they bite.
There are known to be at least 33 different species of mosquito in the UK, but there are no clear estimates as to the total number of insects.
Of those in Britain, the most prevalent is the Culex pipiens, which does not carry malaria.
But the female Anopheles plumbeus, which does, can be found in many parts of England, especially in the north Kent marshes.
