The diffident sunshine did not suffice to banish a tinge of grey from the sky as I boarded the bus, seasonally depopulated of all but the lower income brackets (pensioners, unemployed) and the occasional waif such as myself inward bound to sign the register (timetable vagaries necessitating the trip). The tramp with his characteristically matted hair and copious beard who had so carefully arranged his belongings (mattress rolled up and tied within a protective plastic sheet to prevent its being soaked in his absence, various carrier bags bulging indeterminately) in his modest corner (astutely selected in a part of the city abandoned after the offices close) next to the bridge with its pigeon-spattered pavements, scraggy bushes offering a modicum of privacy at least for part of the year has been definitively evicted by the removal of the bench on which he slumbered so deeply that one of my colleagues phoned the police, believing him dead.

My body trapped here, at my employers’ command, my mind at the cottage, my brother signalling with the headlights to his friends camped on the opposite shore, their bonfire the only visible token of human presence in the all-engulfing blackness. Dropping in on them, he was confronted with Spike, horror film addict with a particular fondness for zombies, recovering from the shock of the bin bag taking on a life of its own. Assailed by visions of dismembered limbs reanimated by canister gas to twitch menacingly, he screamed for a stick before tentatively tipping it on to its side to spew its contents. Poised for the worst abomination, branch at the ready, he sagged with relief when a half-dazed hedgehog scuttled out.

A few hours later, as my brother pulled out of the lay-by, he noticed a prickly ball curled up defensively in the middle of the road. Spike gently scooped up the campsite intruder and proceeded to run it through his hair like a brush. Having deposited it amongst the ferns at a safe distance and satisfied himself that it was not suicidally heading back in the direction of the tarmac he returned to the car where my brother cheerfully informed him that hedgehogs are notorious for being infested with fleas.