FIRST things first - I must try to make my peace with Alice Pitman, whom I have upset by suggesting that she was more keen on Tesco than is entirely proper. I recant at once. I am sure she has a clear perception of the evil ways of that baleful organisation. Also, I do not want to be on the wrong side of one who writes with such wit and elegance, and, furthermore, she is very pretty, which is another reason for trying to scramble back into her good books. Whether such a sexist remark will make things better or worse between us, I shall, in due course, discover.

 

Now, in explanation, I shoot the rabbits because they eat things in the garden, and I put the corpses in the magpie trap. If I catch a magpie, I do it to death in the belief that this is a kindness to the songbirds, as dead magpies cannot eat their chicks, which they otherwise would.

I am slightly sorry about the mice, though. They do annoying things, like eating holes in the potato sacks, but I am not really out to get them. They are, as it were, civilians caught in the crossfire of battle, as they persist in immolating themselves upon the trap I set for the rats. Your average rat, of course, is a cunning fellow. He comes by night to eat the chicken food and Master Rat is too fly to eat your poison when there is chicken food on offer. I thought I had found his Achilles heel when I discovered that he has a weakness for peanut butter, so I baited the spring trap and the walk-in trap with this and caught the two rats above mentioned, but since then they have passed the word around that peanut butter is dangerous stuff and I have caught no more, only mice.

In this the rats are smarter than the squirrels. Squirrel psychology is an interesting matter, as they are clever enough to solve the most intricate puzzles to get at food, and yet are also extremely stupid. I looked out of the bathroom window to see two squirrels eating corn meant for the birds, so I got my gun and shot one. The other ran off, but by the time I was dressed, it was back, feeding beside the corpse of its departed friend, and got shot in turn. If they were as bright as rats, they would have long since have worked out that the Enfield garden is no place for a squirrel in daylight hours.

Squirrels are not the cuddly friendly creatures that they appear. If you let them, they wreck the whole strawberry crop by ripping the green fruits off the plants and chucking them around. Also, last year they began to eat the apple trees by tearing chunks off the trunks and branches. They can be caught in the walk-in trap, however, as they have the same liking for peanut butter as the rats, but I have given this up as I kept catching a hedgehog. A squirrel in a trap gnashes its yellow fangs, chatters and rattles the bars, but the hedgehog sits quietly waiting for me to let him out. I think he is in a state of tranquil euphoria brought on by peanut butter, safe in the knowledge that he and I are on the same side in this war, as he is an enemy to slugs. Apart from any dealings I may have with hedgehogs, gardening seems to be like fishing. It is supposed to be the contemplative man's recreation, and is actually a pretty sanguinary business.