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| Working for peanuts...Grace Quirrel on my patio |
OK, I can do without the eerie twilight flapping of bats around the turrets of neighbouring houses. And I wasn’t best prepared for the three baby hedgehogs my grandson rescued from the hedgerow as they tried vainly to suckle milk from their lifeless mother.
But the suction-padded lizards that scurry up and down the walls fascinate me. So does the incessant chatter of the crickets or whatever they are (I wonder if they ever play Test matches with the bats?)
Back in September, I felt I was in the Garden of Eden when a litter of tiny feral kittens took temporary tenancy of the bamboo gazebo in my garden.
Nevertheless, I have yet to see anything in Guardamar to compare with the urban beauty of my furry friends Grace and Samantha back in Manchester.
Grace Quirrel and Samantha Fox (cringe cringe) have taken up semi-residency at my UK home - and while I see precious little of them thse days, I adore them.
The hunting fraternity would no doubt dismiss both species as vermin...and happily rearrange Samantha’s fur into a natty Manc coat. But urban foxes and grey squirrels have become as much a part of life in the northern ferretlands as flatcaps and black puddings.
Even four miles from Manchester city centre.
They get an unintentional helping hand from local councils, too. None of those slick nightly refuse collections we all marvel at in Spain -- it’s once a fortnight if you’re lucky. And if the lid is not tightly shut on the garbage bags, it won't be emptied, presumably by order of a council terrorist called Bin Over-Laden.
Anyway, the council's inaction means that Grace and Samantha will have bags and bags of goodies for Christmas...courtesy of a garbage-emptying cycle which leaves enough overflowing bins to fill the bellies of an entire colony of foxes.
My only fear is that Grace will become too fat to chase cats (yes, I have seen her in action). She's already a bit of a pudding, legacy of the unending supply of peanuts chucked out to her through the patio doors by the grandkids.
But did you ever see a more beautiful specimen of vermin?
