‘It’s very green here,’ said Deirdre, looking out of my kitchen window. ‘And look at all the birds – is that a robin?’
‘Yes, we get quite a few here, and finches and blue tits, sometimes.’

Washing wine glasses at the sink, I look across from the fence to the bird feeder, its cylindrical cages rocking unexpectedly, half obscured by hop tendrils which have grown monstrously from the weekend’s warmth and rain.

‘Look Deirdre, can you see the squirrel on the feeder? Cheeky beggar!’
A pause, then ‘Alison, that’s not a squirrel …’
The plump furry creature stretches out a long thin tail for balance as it reaches across to the cage of fat balls and I see that she is right.
‘Oh bugger,’ I say, putting the glass on the draining board. ‘That’s one form of wildlife I could definitely do without!’

Later, in talking of ghost tales, Deirdre tells me the story of how a school friend shared the ancient tale of ‘The Black Hand’ one Halloween at boarding school, and how later that night, Deirdre tied one of the black leather gloves that were part of the convent school’s uniform on a string and threw it over the wooden partition between her and her best friend’s beds, suspending it over her head, to an unexpected and complete lack of reaction. Puzzled, she’d looked over the partition to investigate, only to find her friend stupified in terror.

Laughing hard, I take our empty wine glasses back to the kitchen for washing, glancing up as I place them in the sink to see Ratty back at the feeding station, nibbling once again on the fat balls without an iota of anxiety in his demeanour. He ambles languidly off at my tap on the window.

Might a black leather glove suspended on string be the thing to scare him off, I wonder?