Nature notes

In National Parks round the country, breeding efforts have clearly been hugely successful.

Newly hatched clusters of grannies huddle together. At this stage in their life cycle they're almost defenceless, and without eating their own body weight in custard creams every day will quickly die.

This year, fortunately, there's been a bumper biscuit crop, though the rain has turned the gypsy creams soggy in the middle, making dunking a lonely and messy business. But every cloud has a silver lining - the rain has led to an unexpected benefit: the formerly rare call of "Ooh, you do look nice," such a characteristic part of the mutual grooming ritual, has now become relatively commonplace.

The grannies must also be taught the essential skills that will give them the camouflage that's vital if they are to dodge their natural predators - the muggers and rogue tradesmen. Several of the tamest grannies have been lured into the visitor centre by trained scientists calling, 'One pearl, one plain,' - a cry they're genetically programmed to recognise before birth. To see them manipulate the knitting needles - hesitantly at first, then with increasing speed - is one of nature's marvels. Starting with a small mitten, they quickly graduate to scarves. And by the time they fly off to establish their own territories, each one is sporting the shapeless, indeterminately-coloured cardigan that allows them to blend invisibly into any typical suburban street scene.

Bad Lindy, too, has been harvesting her own crop of men. They seem to have responded well to the rain and this year, the harvest is quite outstanding. Some haven't developed quite as well as she'd like, some have developed almost too well but the end result is the same. There's a man surplus.

She does her best to cope. She takes a couple on holiday and then, as the weather is a little unpredictable in the caravan park, packs a couple of spares to use as blankets for extra warmth.

But one woman just can't deal with them all, and confusion is setting in.

One afternoon, on the way home from the playground, Deborah's bike develops a flat tyre.

A car hoots and slows down. Bad Lindy is in the passenger seat, a man beside her. She is two bottles cheerful.

"Something wrong?" she shrieks. I explain. "Oh, it's no problem. He'll take the bike and drop it off home." She gestures to the man beside her. "Won't you, honey," she says, patting his cheek. He nods, then gets out, and together we load the bike into his boot.

Deborah and I wave as they screech off into the distance.

"Mummy," says Deborah. "They're going the wrong way."

Two hours later, we're home, the bike isn't, and Bad Lindy isn't responding to her texts. I can only assume she's going for a bit of crop rotation.