Corfu tails: an unwelcome visitor at the Villa Oleander

There is a shovel waiting on the upstairs balcony, ready to deal with our latest visitor.

It's not for my big brother, although I must admit that, at times when I was younger, I could quite happily have hit him on the head with a garden implement, preferably something pronged.

No, our latest visitor emerged one night not long after a small white cat appeared mewing in the garden, closely followed by a bat. With Doctor Seuss timing, something that rhymes with mat suddenly appeared in the vine overhead.

And it was not a hat.

I could cope with the edible dormice in the roof. They have an interesting and noble history (they were once eaten on sticks by ancient Romans).

And even ordinary mice I can put up with.

But.

Not.

A.

Rat.

There it was, looking down on the family gathering on the outside terrace with cold, beady eyes. And then, once we'd spotted it, it shot off, like the proverbial rat up a drainpipe, although it found its way up by shinning up a pillar and on to the roof.

And the next day, it was back. Mr Grigg has now devised some elaborate way of dispatching the blighter, and to my eternal disappointment it does not involve getting a kitten.

I have named the rat Scabbers because I believe if I ridicule the rat and sort of de-demonise it, the thought of it out there ready to pounce won't make my skin crawl.

You see, as my last encounter with a rat was very close indeed - the two of us were on speaking terms when I found it nesting in the boiler after we'd left the house empty for five weeks - so I would rather not renew the acquaintance thank you very much.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x