Day 12. Friday.I only just got to the pub on time. Over breakfast Sonya engaged me in a discussion on the morning that lay ahead. I could have done without it. She likes winding me up.'Everyone thinks that hunt protesters feel sorry for the fox. Why don’t you?''Do you feel sorry for the fox?''Kinda. It’s alive, has feelings. It’s a bit like a weed really.'I knew I was in for a child’s view of the persecuted in this world.'In what way is a fox like a weed?' I sighed.'A weed is any plant you don’t want to grow in your garden. We grow horseradish. We make horseradish sauce and sell it. It’s inedible unless you want your brains through your ears, but some people buy it. Horseradish isn’t a weed - to us. It is a weed to everyone else in the village because it tries to take over the world.''Where do foxes appear?'

I decided that turning up at the pub, drinking a sherry and going home again, was a compromise I could deal with. She would doubtless ride.I walked home via the stables and dropped in on Sid. I had to tell her that Vera was looking for a lover. But Sid was busy reading stories and being a mother and housewife. I popped next door, to give her time to get straight, but Charley kept me busy a long time.When I finally walked home the pub was shutting. I hated walking in the gloom when strangers were around. Strangers? The village has enough of its own home grown scrumpy-head loonies. Why be scared of the visiting ones?Most of all I was scared of the hunt. That was new territory and I had never dreamt I would cross the threshold into the biggest openly flaunted symbol of plutocracy in these fair isles.I needed Sid to walk with me. What would my severest critic have said?'I am excited and flattered that Vera is so keen on my ideas for disbursing the

Day 13.  Saturday. The birds were making a din. I tried to focus on the clock, but needed first to find my specs. It was only four thirty. Vera had me in a vice-like clinch from behind. I managed to extricate myself without waking her. No idea how. I walked through to Vera’s study. First job - find something to wear. Some woofty kimono thing was hanging in the bathroom. It tied like a kimono, but was sexily short. I thought they should be ankle length. I had to make it do. Secondly - text Sonya, before she wakes and alerts the house to my absence. She’s a worrier. I needed to touch base or she would panic. I kept it short and confusing. ‘Waylaid at ball. Safe and sound - don’t wait up for me. X Mill.’ Third job - reunite Charley with his clothes. He could hardly slide out unnoticed, wearing DJs that probably cost four figures. I met him on the landing between Vera’s apartment and my room. He

Day 14. Sunday.I woke at six thirty. I hadn’t heard Charley rise. I assume he was already next door, sorting the children out, so that Sid could have a lie in. What drives that man? Is he going for beatification? Silly. He’d have to be martyred first.I dressed, walked home, and found the early morning air unseasonably cold. No wonder. I was still in my shag-me shorts and shirt from the previous evening. My bed looked even colder and more uninviting than the walk home, so I shoved Sonya to one side, crawled in beside her, and snuggled up. I remember a physics lesson on radioactive decay. At the time I decided Sonya - then only about seven - must have a plutonium core, gently decaying to heat the universe -  perfect to cuddle up to on a cold morning. That girl will never want for the love of a good man in her life.Sonya turned out at eight and turned me out with her.'It

'So, no one else cottoned on?' 'People may have thought us totally bereft of any common sense, but once the gossip mill was grinding, they lost all sense of reality. Perhaps they liked the idea that her ladyship had a couple of bastards by another man and gave them to a childless farmer in Scotland with a big financial reward. I think every other interpretation of my disappearance was too bizarre to be believed.' I pondered her tale. Once it had sunk in, I was aghast. 'So, let me get this straight, Vera. Not only did you have the trauma of miscarrying twins, you had to live a lie, deny any local support systems for a grieving mother and go live on your own in some Scottish castle. And you had a husband, who would rather be married to an adulteress than a faithful wife who had the misfortune to miscarry. When was your breakdown? 'Very perceptive. It hasn’t happened yet, although for a while I fought with it every day. 'Past tense?' 'Yes