Livestock

Very early on we decided that rural postal delivery was a bit hit and miss so we rented a Post Office Box in town. That makes the letterbox fastened to the outside of our gate a bit redundant.

The other day the village mayoress sent a WhatsApp message to say that she'd left copies of the programme for our village fiesta in everyone's letterbox. Now, if we don't use the letterbox, the wasps do. Both Maggie and I have made the painful mistake of putting our hand inside only to have one of the black and yellow critters sting us. Not yesterday though. In full Balkans genocidal mode I dosed the letter box with fly spray before attempting to extract the programme. To my surprise a lizard zoomed out. Google says it's unlikely I did it any damage. Not so the unfortunate wasps that had built a little nest in there. As in the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song  - Four Dead in Ohio - there were just four wasps at home. It was a very small nest. I suppose the rest were probably hanging around the swimming pools of the better heeled.

This morning, I'm coming out of the supermarket. A mother is loading up her children to the car parked next to mine. "Look, a grasshopper!," she says - actually she said it in Spanish but you get the drift. I stared in the general direction but saw no beast. We have tens of them, probably hundreds, in our garden anyway. We also have millions of, and I exaggerate not, ants in our garden. Bumper year for ants. Anyway, I'm driving home and, in the rear-view mirror, I notice there is a grasshopper sitting on the rear headrest.

Just to add that the legion of cats that are living with us, some of them temporarily, bring us lots of animal gifts. Usually in bloody bundles but, last night, Bea brought home a shrew which we managed to wrest from her grip and herd into a closed room where the cats forgot about it. Maggie eventually caught the tiny beast and released it into the corn stubble opposite.