We were a long way from the olives of coastal Dalmatia!

It has been about twelve months since we started work on the village property. Last year, the forgotten time between Christmas and New Year was spent clearing the jungle and removing as many wild pears, and koštela, feral vines and vicious brambles as possible. This year’s holiday has been a different story as the weather has been seriously inclement; if it wasn’t pouring with rain, it was bitterly cold.

Another Brick in the Wall

Walls. What is “wall”? Is it a mental block where you are struggling to find the words to express ongoing emotional mayhem? Perhaps it is the concrete shell of a house which needs styrapol, glue and render to protect it from the elements? 

Or even better, maybe it is an absence of wall, where one has fallen down.

The Tale of Mr. & Mrs. Squirrel Nutkins and the Drain-Side Dwelling

Yes, I know, it's been a while.

More than a while.

What can I say... I've lacked inspiration.

That was until the distant one sent me something to make me smile, a story featured at the BBC.

I can, of course, take no credit for this short story, other than that I created a prompt and guided the mysteries of our AI overlords. Not that they have any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, nor will they be taking my job anytime soon, trust me, I've seen the awful results that they produce.

But still, get comfortable dear reader, here it is, it made me chuckle!

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The Tale of Mr. & Mrs. Squirrel Nutkins and the Drain-Side Dwelling

On the edge of a very respectable Hertfordshire lane, not far from the hedgerow where the blackberries droop and the primroses peep, there stood a perfectly ordinary roadside drain.

At least, it had been perfectly ordinary until Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel Nutkins arrived.

Mr. Nutkins, a sprightly young red squirrel with an extravagant tail and even more extravagant ideas, had recently married the charming and practical Miss Hazel Birchwood—now Mrs. Nutkins—whose whiskers twitched whenever she suspected mischief.

They were very much in love. They were also, it must be said, terrible kleptomaniacs.

A Most Unexpected Home

One fine April morning, Mr. Nutkins declared:

“My dearest Hazel, what we need is a home of convenience—dry, hidden, and close to all the best scraps.”

Mrs. Nutkins, who had been eying a hollow in an ash tree, had some reservations. But newlyweds are prone to compromise, and before long the couple were trotting down the verge with a bundle of moss and a very old sock between them.

To her astonishment, Mr. Nutkins stopped at the metal grating of a roadside drain.

“Here we are!” he chirped.
“A perfect townhouse! Look—built-in ventilation!”

And so, the Nutkins set up house in the drain.

A Growing Hoard

Now, squirrels are fond of treasures, but Mr. and Mrs. Nutkins were most fond of treasures that were not theirs.

Within a week, the drain contained:

• One pair of trousers (very muddy, size enormous)

• Half a trampoline mat (folded tightly and stuffed like a sofa cushion)

• Three bottle caps

• A respectable collection of shiny washers

• A child’s sparkly hairclip

• And, for reasons even they could not explain, an antique brass hand grenade (which they treated with great reverence and used as a footstool)

Mrs. Nutkins would sigh.

“My love, we cannot keep every curious thing you find.”

“But Hazel, dearest,” Mr. Nutkins insisted, “they follow me home. I simply try to be polite.”

The Rumbling of Authority

Their activities did not go unnoticed.

One morning, the council’s Drain Inspection Officer—Mr. Puddlewick, a man who took great pride in his clipboard—peered into the drain and gasped so sharply that his moustache twitched sideways.

“Good heavens! Is that… hosiery?”

He returned the next day with a camera. On the third day he brought reinforcements.

Soon there were murmurs throughout the hedgerows:

“The humans are coming,” whispered a vole.
“Something about trousers and a device from the war,” muttered a crow.

“I told him,” Mrs. Nutkins fretted, “I told him not to bring home that terrible brass thing!”

Eviction Day

The council arrived with great pomp, two vans, and an air of determined tidiness.

Mr. Puddlewick addressed the drain:

“Occupants of illicit drain-based residence, kindly vacate at once.”

Inside, Mr. Nutkins bristled.

“We are respectable woodland folk! We have a footstool!”

But Mrs. Nutkins tugged his tail.

“Nutley dear, they have high-visibility jackets. We cannot win.”

With dignity (and several small stolen items stuffed hastily into their cheek pouches), the Nutkins scurried out just as the council officers extracted the trampoline, the trousers, and the venerable hand grenade.

A polite sign soon appeared:

“NO SQUIRRELS. NO HOARDING. DRAIN TO REMAIN CLEAR.”

A Fresh Start

That evening, the couple found the ash-tree hollow Mrs. Nutkins had preferred all along.

They arranged bits of moss and twigs into a tidy nest. Mr. Nutkins hung up the sparkly hairclip “as art.” Mrs. Nutkins pretended not to mind.

“Perhaps,” she said gently, “we could adopt a rule: no objects larger than your head?”

Mr. Nutkins pondered this.
“Not even trousers?”

“Not even trousers.”

He agreed—mostly because he had already spotted a very small teaspoon gleaming temptingly in the grass.

And so, Mr. & Mrs. Squirrel Nutkins lived happily, if not entirely honestly, ever after—far from drains, close to the treetops, and only occasionally in possession of other people’s belongings. 

Clips from village life in Autumn: Grape jelly, caterpillars, and dubious trucks

Three recent snapshots from September 2025, just little sketches to remind us to laugh at the ridiculous. It doesn't get more ridiculous than too many grapes, unknown baby plants, and a really dangerous truck!

"Between the Wines" Book Club: Reflections on 'Where the Crawdads Sing'

We are "Between the Wines". We are independent, smart women whose conversations range from literary criticism to life advice (and back again), usually over good food and a bottle - or two -of something chilled. This  July, as we melt through a Dalmatian heatwave with dreams of ice and cold showers, our determination to read, debate, and laugh together hasn’t wavered.

Experimental writing 2: A new start

Chapter One

It wasn’t the first time Clare had left him. But it was the first time she hadn’t told him she was going.

No blazing row, no overwrought email, no sulking endless text war. Just... absence. A vacancy. Not so much a grand exit as a quiet unfollowing of a story that had long since stopped making sense. She’d simply booked the holiday, clicked confirm, and boarded a plane with nothing but suncream, shoes for every eventuality, some cute beachwear, and the faintest whiff of defiance.

Snakes and ladders, and other nonsense

Where are we at the village house after this two-week hiatus of moving? After the house move, my routine is definitely out of whack, which combined with a head cold allergy combo, meant that my brain was feeling a bit scatty (no change there then!). I forgot my coat, the firelighters, and the better-tasting bread. Such is life. This blocked nose didn't bode well for all the bending over and hacking at weeds.