My wife in the throes of passion didn’t see the view beyond her shoulder of the field mouse scurrying across the bedroom floor.

Nor did she notice when later,when I cornered the rodent using a transparent tube. She probably would have screamed when the mouse shot up the tube and started spinning like a little Tasmanian devil. My fist shuddered with the gyroscopic forces of the Mus musculus doing its turns. If it then escaped, well, then I’d have some explaining to do!

There was only one thing for it, I walloped the rodent on the skull with a wooden back-scratcher to slow it down. The mouse turned bright blue and fluffy, dazed and visibly concussed. I suddenly felt shame. What had I done? Would the little fella survive such an unkind thwack?

I carried him in the tube out to my garden and watched as he groggily wobbled out of the tube and sluggishly crawled away into the undergrowth. Oh dear.

As I lifted my head to observe the rest of the garden, I became fully aware of how it stretched out so much further than I’d previously noticed. I then noticed a Victorian house of magnificent proportions, it must have been at least fifteen storeys high. Punctuated with  black cast iron  drain pipes, and balconies, it’s splendour was in its sheer scale.

“Oh Tanya would love to live in this.” I thought, but then I quickly reminded myself that the bills in such places can be horrendous. I then started to walk out of the garden and around the towering house into a busy street in the city of Bristath. Day had turned to night and I became aware that while I’d badly dealt with a small blue fluffy creature, and contemplated for a moment living in a building beyond my means, I’d also neglected to tell my wife where I’d gone.

She wouldn’t be happy.