Noises in THE NIGHT

What is that mysterious scratching sound?

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Cast your mind back two or three weeks or so ago and you might remember that Mr Dear was grumbling about a dinner invitation we'd received from Wendy, my friend and charity shop colleague.

You might also remember that Wendy lives in a rather grand house, her husband Iain’s family pile. It’s not exactly Blenheim Palace, more of a rectory that’s been eating lots of steak and using some chest expanders it found in the attic.

Mr D is very fond of Wendy in his way, and believes that Iain is ‘sound’. Whatever that means. But the older he gets, the less he cares about which glass you're supposed to use for white wine and how you should eat asparagus.

He feared that dinner in Wendy and Iain’s rather grand dining room would be an ordeal. Luckily, it turned out to be a relaxed meal around the kitchen table.

We'd been invited to stay over, so my sister Deb agreed to sleep at our house to look after the dog and guard our knickknacks against burglary.

We were put in the guest room. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever slept in a fourposter,’ murmured Mr D, across a vast expanse of linen. Some beds should come with a National Trust guide in each corner, and this was one of them. ‘I feel like Queen Elizabeth I. This is just the sort of house where she’d have stayed.’