Our house was built when Queen Victoria was still mourning her beloved Albert. We bought it thirty-five years ago and there were mice. I went round with polyfilla, plastering any hole in the structure and since then we have been mouse-free. Till recently, that is. My wife did not take well to finding small, black droppings everywhere. She visited the local hardware store and bought up rolls of steel wool; she filled any gap she found then put putty on top; she bought traps, some humane, some lethal, and baited them with good chocolate (well, we live in South Edinburgh). But not one mouse was caught and the droppings continued to drop. One evening I was seated in the bathroom when a tiny beast rounded a corner, saw me and fled. Where, I know not.

More steel wool was bought, more holes found and sealed. The traps were baited with cheese (French). Still no success. The wee blighters began to knaw at our carpets.

We started to bait the traps with raisins, but they simply ate those leading to the mouth of the trap without entering. My wife went back to the hardware shop for more steel wool, but the shopkeeper, now very prosperous, had sold out. 'Never mind,' he said, 'they'll go back out to the fields once the better weather comes.'

The strange thing is, we have come to respect the intelligence of our adversaries. 'Well, no sign of our furry friends this morning,' my wife reported today, the merest hint of affection in her voice. But we won't be sad to see them go.