A woman was left in agony for weeks after a bite from a fly resulted in painful swelling and blisters on her foot.

Wendy Johnson, 50, from Cambridgeshire, thought she’d been bitten by a horsefly, but it turns out a tiny Dorset “superfly” known as the Blandford fly is thought to be to blame.

Ms Johnson was sitting in her in-laws’ garden in Waterbeach when the insect bit her. At first it didn’t seem so bad but she found herself in agony for three weeks.

The fly, which is most common in the south of England along rivers and streams, has started to venture into gardens due to the dry weather this summer – and the popularity of water features.

Wendy felt a sting and saw the black “beetle looking fly” on her foot, which she describes as “nothing I’ve ever seen before”.

Wendy has been back and forth to the doctors for check-ups and was on antibiotics for five days.

It took Wendy three weeks until she could get a shoe on, after her blisters were popped by doctors and dressed. She is still in some discomfort, though. She said: “It is still sore now but I’m more mobile.”

Pop singer Mollie King, from the Saturdays, and golfer Ian Poulter also both suffered from the superfly’s bite in the last month.

The fly is described as only a few millimetres long, dark, and usually seen from May until early August.

The warm weather in the evenings is encouraging more people to sit out in gardens, becoming targets to the blood sucking flies, which prefer humans to animals.