Core values

Vicky is on the phone in her kitchen when a little old lady passes her back door on the way to the garden. Naturally, this comes as a bit of a shock. "For all I know, there are master criminals out there using little old ladies as bait," she says to me later as she tells me the story.

So instead of yelling, "What the hell are you doing in my garden?" she raps politely on the window, then calls, "Hello - are you all right?"

The old lady looks slightly surprised. "I thought the house was uninhabited," she calls back through the glass. "It looks so dishevelled from the front. I didn't realise anyone lived here."

Vicky explains that, on the contrary, she's been there several years, and points out the presence of possessions and people - both normally considered a pretty failsafe sign of occupation.

"Can I come in?" says the woman, as though sailing into other people's back gardens were neither here nor there. "Can you come round to the front?" Vicky says, thinking again of the desperate rapists and murders who could be tiptoeing down the side passage behind her, carrying unmarked swag bags.

"Why - does this door not open?" says the little old lady, rattling impatiently at the handle. Vicky lets her in. She asks if Vicky has an apple tree. Nature is not one of Vicky's strong points, especially now Dave's thunderingly vast purple carrots are taking up all the available gardening space in her brain.

"I'm not quite sure," falters Vicky.

"I was in my garden late yesterday evening when a whole host of apples came pouring over the fence at great speed. I think some youths had come into your garden and were throwing them."

She makes Vicky go back into the garden with her so they can look for evidence. Eventually they find an apple tree, without a single fruit on its branches.

"Oh, perhaps it wasn't you," says the old lady. But Vicky has been thinking back to last night, when the children were playing so beautifully outside while she unpacked the holiday luggage.

And she knows full well that the only reason there are no apples is that her children have picked every single one and hurled it at the neighbours.

Still later, she and the children go round to the little old lady's house and present her with a box of chocolates. Immediately after that, and as soon as the front door has shut, the children roll around on the pavement, clutching their stomachs with laughter, totally unpenitent.

"I think the lamb incident has unleashed their inner psychopaths," said Vicky."Surely they're supposed to be feeling upset by now. Little bastards."

"What is it with me?" asks Vicky, "Things just happen."

As she says this, she puts the finishing touches to the children's tea. I realise that it is a very small rack of lamb.

She catches my eye."What?" she says, in the tone of someone spoiling for a fight. I decide to change the subject.