Valentines Day

St Valentine's Day took Wilson by surprise this morning, when a crop of envelopes landed on the doormat. Most of his mail proved to be identical Valentine cards from his family, but there was one mystery card. 

'This is the third time this has happened!' W exclaimed fractiously. 'I really don't have the time for this… I must get on with my Survival Shelter.'

'What Survival Shelter?' I enquired.

'I'm building an asteroid-proof underground bunker in the back garden. There will be room for me, Antony and a supply of ants and ant juice. Antony's toy will have to remain outside, unfortunately.'

'And where will I be?' I asked, although I think I already knew the answer.

Wilson looked me up and down. 'You're very large, New Dad, you won't fit in the shelter. I think your best bet will be to remain outside, sit under the dining room table and hope for the best. Perhaps you could take care of Antony's toy while you're there.' 

Wilson doesn't receive a reply...

A couple of days ago, following the suggestion of Cathy, one of his friends, Wilson contacted Brian Cox to ask him for reassurance about the impending asteroid close pass:

"Dear Professor Cox, can you PROMISE me that we're not all going to die next week? New Dad tries to reassure me but... pic.twitter.com/3EwoJg53" 

Brian Cox has not replied… which in Wilson's mind can mean only one thing: we're all going to die.

I tried explaining that the professor was probably in Indonesia filming a new series, and was perhaps out of range of Wi-Fi, but W has made his mind up.

The new Pope

Following the shock resignation of the Pope yesterday, Wilson is writing his CV so he can apply for the job himself. As he pointed out to me, not only would Wilson the 1st be the first Costa Rican Pope, he would also be the first Flying Spaghetti Monsterist to hold the post. 

I advised him to play down this aspect of his spiritual life.

Halfway through writing his CV, W closed the MacBook with a sigh and said, 'What's the point? We'll all be dead before I even get appointed! It's such a shame, I could have issued such great Edicts. And Papal Bulls…' 

I think he was really looking forward to driving around in the PopeMobile.

We're all going to die!

There was no point lying to Wilson about 2012 DA14 — he has access to Google, after all — so I told him the truth: it's a 500m asteroid that's going to pass quite close to Earth.

'How close?' he asked.

'Not very' I replied, hoping this would satisfy him.

'We are all going to die!' he wailed. 'You are so naïve, New Dad! Do you really think they'd TELL us that it's going to hit the Earth and kill everyone? Of course they won't, there'd be pandemonium!'

'Look, I promise you it's going to miss us!' I said.

'Well it doesn't look very much like that here' he replied, pointing to the tv. 'It looks like it's heading straight for us!'

National Geographic Society

Wilson was sitting in the dining room, composing a very strongly-worded email to the National Geographic Society about how they shouldn't put such scary photographs of microbes in their magazine, when a news item came on the radio.

As soon as he'd sent the email he came to find me, asking, 'New Dad, what's 2012DA14?'

My heart sank.

Mouth wash

Wilson is using mouth wash to protect his 'precious tongue' from the 7,949 species of microbes apparently living on it. 

Well, he told me it was mouth wash. He later admitted that it was alcohol. Ant Gin, specifically, and instead of rinsing his mouth with it, he's swallowing… and getting quite giggly.

At least while he's worrying about microbes he's not fretting over whether his imported dried ants are contaminated with horse DNA.

A useful map

Some of Wilson's friends have asked for a copy of his Microbe Map, so that they too may rid themselves of this invisible menace. Here is a printable version of it.

W is staying close to the phone as he is expecting to hear about his payout following the Phone Hacking Inquiry. 

Similarly, despite never having taken out a loan or even visited a bank in his whole life, he is expecting to hear about his compensation for having been mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance.

Good luck with that!

Howard Hughes

Wilson came out of the bathroom to sleep last night… but today he's back in there again. He says he's having a good soak so that the microbes in all his crevices will drown. He has drawn up a chart to remind him of all the places requiring 'special attention.'

If I can't snap him out of this, soon he'll be surrounded by Kleenex boxes, wearing rubber gloves and generally behaving like Howard Hughes!

In fact, just to be on the safe side, I'm going to hide the DVD of Ice Station Zebra...

Wilson takes action

So far, Wilson has got through two bottles of Head & Shoulders, and he's still not done! The thought of all those microbes crawling over and inside his body is, as he puts it, 'Doing my head in!'

He asked me if Antony had microbes all over him as well, and I told him I thought probably not. To be on the safe side, though, W made me pop him in the microwave for 20 seconds on Defrost. 

Tiny invisible animals are out to get Wilson!

'Have you read this?' Wilson asked, visibly shaken. 'This "Secret World of Microbes" article? It says that there are tiny animals living inside my nose! On my beautiful tongue! Tell me it's not true, New Dad!' 

The article in question, illustrated with many coloured photographs and diagrams, explained that every breath of air contains millions of microbes, and that our bodies are alive with them. There are apparently 2,264 species in our nostrils alone. Not 2,264 microbes, but 2,264 species! The article goes on to explain that the microbes in and on our bodies can weigh more than our brain. 

I tried to explain to Wilson that many of these microbes were friendly, indeed necessary to life, but he wasn't listening.

'Eeeeew! Tiny invisible animals are crawling all over me!' he exclaimed, 'I'm off to have a bath!' 

With this he stomped upstairs, shuddering with each step.

Wilson reads an unsuitable magazine...

I had to go searching for Wilson, and I eventually found him sitting in the Wilson Vermilingua Museum of Old Stuff And a Robot, reading an unsuitable magazine which he had found in the Recycling pile. 

He was quite upset by what he'd seen, and I've had to calm him down as best I can. I don't think I've heard the last of this…

Recycling

Today it is cold and wet again, so I was very grateful when Wilson offered to take out the Recycling to the bin. 

I made coffee for him while he was out, but he seems to have disappeared. Still, I'm sure he'll be alright...

Wilson tries to heal his broken heart...

Wilson watched a documentary about Joni Mitchell on Sky Arts this morning. This inevitably brought back memories of his doomed romance and he got a bit morose as a result. 

I suggested he might work off his melancholy mood by doing a bit of gardening, so he headed out with a box of grass seed and some tools… and his wretched and terrifying "friend" sTony.

Faster! FASTER!

I've always found visiting Garden Centres to be quite hard work… no less so now that Wilson has discovered children's ride-in shopping trolleys! He's heavier than he looks, you know, and his constant cries of, 'Faster, New Dad! Faster!' make it quite an exhausting experience. 

We didn't actually buy anything on this trip, just kept chasing up and down the aisles until we were asked to leave. Oh, the ignominy!

The weather was sunny but chilly, and on the way home W confided that he was going to knit himself a scarf, so long as Andrea would cast it on for him. And cast it off, obviously. 

With the eye-wateringly high cost of postage it would be much cheaper to buy a scarf, but knitting does keep him out of trouble…

MONTHLY JOURNAL: JANUARY 2013

It's that time when I upload WILSON'S MONTHLY JOURNAL!

Read it online or download it in PDF from here:

http://issuu.com/friendlydragon/docs/ant_wars_ii_january_2013

You can see the very smart new Journals that Wilson gave me for Xmas!

You can SUBSCRIBE to Wilson's daily blog feed, and also read it in other languages, here:

http://antwars2.blogspot.co.uk/

A special welcome to all of Wilson's new readers in the USA and Canada, Germany, Holland, Malaysia and China!

Photographs of the lovely WILSON are by Tamanduagirl at 

http://www.livingwithanteaters.com/ and are used by kind permission.

Cast off...

Neither Wilson nor I have the faintest idea how to cast-off Baby Laura's scarf. Although we researched it on the internet, it looked way too complicated in the little diagrams, so he is posting it to his Big Sister Andrea so she can cast it off and give it to Laura.

The weather is much better today so after we've been to the post office to mail the scarf we're going on to a garden centre to see whether we can be inspired for the coming summer.

A more challenging test...

Wilson's verdict on baby Laura's scarf is that it performed well enough in yesterday's test, but that maybe the appraisal wasn't challenging enough.

For this reason he has headed out into the snow to see how the scarf functions in more trying circumstances. 

I did at least manage to persuade him to wear his boots during the evaluation, and I've got a mug of hot chocolate ready for him when he comes back in from the cold with his verdict.

Testing, testing...

Wilson has decided that baby Laura's scarf is probably long enough, but before he sends it off to her he insisted on testing it for warmth and softness. 

I make a suggestion...

Wilson was getting on with baby Laura's scarf this morning, and asked me how long I thought it should be. Laura is only a week old, so I told him I thought it was probably already big enough, and even if it was on the large side she would soon grow into it. 

I took this opportunity to talk to W about the coffee machine and the paper cups, which he intends to put on eBay. I really like the coffee from the machine, and using paper cups would dramatically cut down on washing-up, so I suggested we keep both the machine and the cups. 

The kitchen is just about full of boxes of paper cups, so I wondered whether W would consent to storing them in the Wilson Vermilingua OBE Museum of Old Stuff and a Robot… and to my surprise, he agreed! As he pointed out, we'll probably have used them all up by the time the museum opens to the public.

Wilson reaches a difficult decision

Today, over a cup of coffee, Wilson announced that he'd talked it over with his mother, Mrs Vermilingua, and had reached a difficult decision about his coffee delivery business. 

Mrs V told him that one of his ancestors, Great Great Uncle Gilbertian, had lost all his money investing in Costa Rican coffee futures, and that since his ruination, coffee had been like a curse on the Vermilingua family. Except for drinking it, obviously! 

Therefore, he said, he was reluctantly 'ceasing trading forthwith, and putting the coffee machine and the paper cups on eBay.'