The level of panic the people were showing was enough to make us realise it was not a good idea to stay there so we did no more than clear all our things from the flat, gather as many cushions and bedding we could find, load all our everything into the car and head for the house we had just bought.

We did manage to sleep on and off that night as a few glasses of wine did wonders in softening the hard floor. We could have gone to the nearest hotel but it seemed much more fun staying in the house so we went to the shops and bought some camping equipment, a plastic picnic table and some chairs and made ourselves comfortable.

Every day we went to the riverside in Ercsi to see what was happening. The police had a permanent guard on all the roads leading to the river to prevent anyone getting near in case of accidents. Sandbags were packed right around one small house that is near to the river bank and sandbags were placed outside all the houses that had any chance of flooding. Everyone in the town went to see what was happening at some point during the day.

After a week of hovering on the brink of a more serious flood, to everyone’s relief, the water began to recede as quickly as it had risen and things began to return to normal. Apparently the top road didn’t flood in Budapest and although businesses lost money for a short time they were not damaged.

The worse thing that happened in Ercsi was that the water undermined a part of the river bank that houses are built on and they were in danger of slipping down into the water. The following year a lot of work was done on the bank and along the river side so that there will be no risk in future.

One day, after the flood water subsided, we went on our bikes to the fishing lakes in Ercsi, which run alongside the Danube , to see if they had survived the flood. We saw several fishermen coming from the lakes and they waved to us as they went past. We cycled along the path, between the trees that run by the water and suddenly we were attacked by hundreds of huge mosquitoes. Realisation struck home, the fishermen were not waving to us but they were beating off the mosquitoes. When I say huge, I mean huge, I have never seen such large ones. They clung to our backs and tried to bite us through the fabric of our shirts.

Peddling as fast as we could we escaped from the trees and stopped when we were at a safe distance and brushed them off each other. We had a lucky escape as we were not really harmed so we peddled further down the road. All of a sudden another swarm of mosquitoes appeared from different direction and we were attacked again. This time they were determined to get a feast of blood and they were much more difficult to deter. My husband had a cap on and they were trying to bite him through that as well but I was bareheaded and they got into my hair and I could not dislodge them – it was time to head for home. We reached the house and as soon as the door was opened I started peeling off my clothes and dived under the shower to get them out of my hair and off my body and dozens fell into the tray. Just writing this makes me re-live the dreadful sensation of them moving around in my hair and the discomfort as they bit my back, face and arms.

While we were by the lakes we could see that the flood water had reached a height of about 2 metres by the mud that had been left on the trees. Apparently as the flood waters rushed down the Danube it washed out all the swamps and stagnant pools along the side of river taking with it the mosquito eggs which were then deposited in the mud and the fishing lakes as the water level subsided. The sun came out, the eggs hatched and they emerged from the water hungry for blood.

In fact there were so many that first a helicopter sprayed the town with insecticide and that had no effect. Next a bi-plane dropped its load over us all (if we hadn’t rushed in doors on each occasion I hate to think what it would have done to us) but it had no effect in getting rid of the nasty little insects. Everyone in the town was getting really fed up with the swarms of mosquitoes everywhere and it was really uncomfortable getting bitten all the time.

In desperation we bought an “Insectacutor” and hung it on the veranda so we could at least sit outside on a warm evening but the noise of insect bodies being zapped was not the best sound to enjoy a glass of good Hungarian wine by.

One evening we were looking over the hill, opposite our house, and we could see a lot of smoke. At first we thought a house was on fire and we were getting quite concerned about it. But, on closer inspection, we could see that the smoke was winding its way slowly down the hillside – first we thought it may have been an old car that was belching out smoke from its exhaust pipe but as it got nearer we could see that it was a lorry winding its way along the streets with a smoke machine on board. It eventually made its way slowly all over the town and that did the trick, except for the odd one or two, the mosquitoes disappeared.

For the last couple of years, to make sure there are no more plagues of the pesky creatures the council drops special tablets into the still ponds and lakes to get rid of the mosquitoes but it does not harm the other wild life and I am pleased to say, we have not had many of them hanging around since.