So, the hunt for my running shoes…. I learn from her ladyship that they were consigned to the garden shed long ago. I march out into the garden, across our postage stamp-sized lawn. Just opening the shed door causes an avalanche … of garden implements, bicycles, plant pots and skittering packets of seeds. Does everyone else in this country have as much extraneous stuff? Eventually I locate my trainers under a rake behind a bag of charcoal. And there, happily installed, I also find a family of field mice, four furry rodents in bucolic bliss, lolling on their backs and munching lazily on stalks of grass. They look at me doubtfully.