Back to work tomorrow. The summer (for me at any rate) is over, and it has been a wet one – “A good summer for slugs” as Regine from next door reminded me as she went to pick up her morning paper from the better box. Regine, being a keen grower of vegetables is certainly no slug friend “they eat all my lettuces” she rasps, adding that so far this summer, she has personally “dealt” with 1000 slugs.

Regine is the kind of canny lady who would have her garden rigged with slug traps, but much to my surprise she tells me that she merely gets there slug and throws it in the bin.

No traps? No slug pub? – That’s the best way to kills slugs – a bowl of beer buried in the garden. The slugs are attracted by the beer and then they fall in to meet a drunken if not watery end – a gastropub for gastropods! – suppose it’s not unlike George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence,  brother to Ricgard III and Edward IV – tried for treason and allegedly executed by drowning in a vatt of Malmsey wine – what a way to go.

Having no veg, I don’t mind slugs or snails – Regine has dealt 300 snails this summer – though she doesn’t eat them. I suppose word has got round the gastropod world that a trip into Regine’s garden is certain death (though not by beer) – which is why all the slugs and snails seem to slither their slimy way into my little corner of God’s earth. I have no veg. I don’t have the patience to grow veg. I don’t kill slugs or snails. If I do happen to disturb any, during ardening I carefully transfer them to another, unkempt, humid garden corner. I don’t mind these little critters – live and let live. I think of the day that I might be reincarnated as a snail.