Low life | 7 April 2016

The younger grandson, Klynton, four, has got in the habit recently of thrusting his hands in my trouser pockets and tearing up and throwing away whatever he finds there. He goes about it with energy and application, snarling and growling like a lion, and it’s bloody annoying. Because he is impervious to physical pain, a smart cuff around the cranium only makes him press his attack more violently, like a brave bull ‘insisting’ against a picador’s lance. If there is a sofa handy, I pick him up, throw him across the room into it, and he comes back at me as if rebounding on a length of elastic. Most often he robs me of cash, but the other day his assault was rewarded with an hour-old MOT certificate that was ripped apart in the ensuing tug-of-war.

We’ve got mice in the house again at the moment. Headquarters is somewhere under the floorboards with an exit hole in an upstairs cupboard.