WE’VE been looking after next door's Guinea Pigs while they're away. I mean the Royal we, as in not me.

What ‘we’ means is the Mother Superior following a complex set of instructions every day at the same time involving all the major vegetables.

Once the droppings are gone, my role is to turn up with the kids and get ‘Iggle and Piggle’ out for a little stroke.

My inner freedom fighter hankers to let them tear off round the garden.

I’m under strict orders not to do this. Or as she warned: ‘In case they go through that hole in the fence you’ve never got round to fixing…’ I harbour ambitions for those Guinea Pigs.

For them to be like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

Burning away along the fence line on motorbikes as our dog goes apopleptic, barking: ‘Achtung, Nein, Schnell!”

Back in the real world; we’ve all taken quite a shine to Iggle and Piggle.

It’s a shame they’re called that because one of them’s got a fringe like Bernie Ecclestone.

I’m sure they have technical names.

Even though it would be fairly easy now to minimise this document, go on to Google and check, it feels like way too much hassle.

No sooner do I start enjoying the idea of having guinea pigs, I get a flashback to the Fish Police and the dream pops.

I hope next door have enjoyed themselves on holiday, although I doubt it somehow.

Two stressed adults, two kids under four, her mam, her dad, and a Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross trapped in a caravan the size of a small horse box during a week forecast with ‘showery outbursts’.

For ‘pudding’ - a six-hour long slog from the south coast in a hot, family car.

On their return, the Mother Superior will sincerely inquire how it went.

The reply will be ‘lovely’.

Over her shoulders, his pain-streaked eyes will connect with mine.

He’ll mumble something, allow his eyebrows to jump contemptously, then exhale.

For a long, long time.