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We suffered an infestation of mice one year. They took refuge under the kitchen sink, in the bathroom, the garden shed, and made a little hole behind the sofa. My brother and I were very fond of these mice, you know. We named each family and fed them corn from the chicken coop, which they seemed genuinely quite pleased to receive.
A few months after they moved in, the Jonson family had a litter of babies behind the sofa. They has such tiny bodies I couldn't believe what I saw. Their eyes seemed so large, like a satellite dish stuck onto one of those giant furry tennis balls you get at Wimbledon. Except Henman hadn't signed it and it wasn't green. But you get me.
We watched with endless fascination as the family flourished during the summer holidays. My father was intent on setting traps to kill them, but we urged him not to. In fact, Alexander threw a tantrum. But we couldn't let their lives go to waste. Their intent little eyes and quick movements convinced us of their innocence and their ability to feel pain as well as love.
And we loved them.

So the last week of the summer holidays became an elongated episode of that mouse trap game, except they were caught humanely. I didn't have the heart to squash a tiny being, let alone to eat the side of a pig or the leg of a lamb. Eventually, Alexander and I persuaded each family to move into a cardboard shoebox, with the help of mature cheddar cheese, and successfully moved each brood to a new neighbourhood – the field round the corner.





I saw a mouse today creeping into our kitchen. The front door had been left open to accommodate for the fantastic heatwave we were feeling. My wife tied up the corners of her ladies fit shirt and showed a little of her midriff. I could hear Mrs. Parkinson gossiping to Mrs. Wallis next door over the fence as I lounged in our garden watching the kids in the paddling pool. The broadsheet paper hid my roaming eyes as I twigged her conversation.

“Disgusting sight! None of the neighbourhood expected such a careless exposing of flesh from who we though was a respectable young woman. Thank goodness her skirt doesn't come above her knee.”

Truth be known, I liked my wife to wear sandals and shorten her tops. I liked her legs bare. I liked to see her in just her knickers. I liked it all. I didn't care about their 'fuddy-duddy' principles. It was nearly the 60s after all, I could sense that Deborah was not the only lady in a neighbourhood somewhere who dared not to wear pantyhose on a Sunday to church.

She might be a free spirit, but when I entered the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, the mouse was under a cup. It wasn't free in our house.