Well, I suspected this house might have a ghost – it’s very old, the backdoor is often open in the morning and the hall way makes funny noises.  Then I realised that Himself and I were just rubbish at remembering to lock the back door and Norman must be exactly the right weight to ‘clunk’ a specific floorboard.

Now I think that perhaps the squirrel that sits in the tree outside and laughs all evening while doing his squirrel dance to tease Norman is actually evil.  You see:

1. A couple of weeks ago I was in the office and Himself worked from home. Norman, who adores Himself bought Him the gift of a dead bird.  Himself has been a dog owner until now and was apparently at a bit of a loss as to what to do, having sent me photographic evidence.  I later found out that he’d discovered the bird was still warm, considered sugared water (he’d seen me reviving a bee this way), but instead decided to smooth the birds feathers down so it ‘looked quite smart’ and pop it on the bird table incase it’s friends wanted to come and get it….  Really, the next day when he told me this, the bird should have still been there, but it had gone.  Norman can’t get up onto the table, so I couldn’t imagine anything else could. It’s a bit of a mystery.

2. Unfortunately, a week or so later, Norman bought me a bird. This was cold and however much I smoothed his feathers, I thought it wasn’t very likely any of his mates would be over to ferry him off, so I threw him in the undergrowth so at least some creature could have a good dinner.

I don’t know if it was the same bird as my gift, but two days later I walked out to the car, past what I now call the sacrificial table:

(It’s actually a rather lovely, very large stone hand..  And no, nobody is sacrificing Little Pea.)

There was a bird on there with a hole right through it’s middle.  Like it had been sacrificed.  By an evil squirrel.  And I bet that squirrel was also responsible for the bird Himself had put on the bird table.  He’d better watch out though;  the last time there was an evil squirrel in the vicinity back at Pog Towers (it bit Norman), Norman got his own back and the squirrel wasn’t around very long.  Evil Squirrel:  You have been warned!