S.U.R.A.

I'd had my suspicions for a while, of course. There'd been those troubling things that resembled nibble marks on the apple that I'd unwisely left overnight in my lunch coolbag, along with the similarly shaped hole in the uneaten brunch bar packaging, and that weirdly stale pack of crisps, but I didn't know for sure until I was on the phone to an old friend who had unwittingly interrupted "2001: A Space Odyssey" and saw something flit across the floor between the TV stand and the large storage box in the centre of the room.

Was it, perhaps (I hoped) just a very large spider...? Now, when that's the option that you're hoping for, then you really know that you've got a problem.

But really, I already knew... and, whilst the rest of the telephone conversation passed by in a bit of a blur, and the film was destined to remain unwatched beyond the imminent unnecessary repair of the AD35 Unit, my first priority was to explain my suspicions to my Beloved and wait for the inevitable fallout.

"Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam… I S.U.R.A…"

Then, with as much calmness and rationality as we could muster (which wasn't much...) we started moving the furniture and the clutter around and discovered yet more evidence all but confirming those suspicions, as the contents of one of those microwaveable grain based heat packs was scattered around in various parts of the room.

We beat a hasty retreat, and then spent a sleepless night thinking that they were everywhere. It's amazing, really, how something so very tiny can assume such vast proportions in the mind. There might, hopefully, only be one of the creatures about, but in my head, the entire house is now just like that scene set in the sewers in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", every cupboard door being opened resembles the roof panel being lifted in "Aliens", and when I get downstairs in the morning, I expect to have them collapse on top of me like a mountain of Tribbles when I open the door.

Even opening up a packet of biscuits makes me think of "Fawlty Towers" (...and you KNOW which episode I mean...!), every shadow, every noise, every movement noticed out of the corner of my eye makes me think that there might be something unexpectedly about to leap out at me, and it is, quite frankly, disturbing to think that I can be so easily disconcerted to this degree.

The next day we called in at the DIY store and bought what we hoped were some "humane" options, because we're nothing if not wet liberals until you scratch our surfaces, and so, later on that evening, the little trapdoor boxes were set out, and the sonic devices plugged into the sockets, and, on the advice of several of the Beloved's colleagues (a surprising number of whom had had similar experiences), various other techniques were applied so that the house currently positively reeks of peppermint oil, which is, incidentally, far preferable to the slight smell of damp straw that my subconscious is now conjuring up everywhere.

We didn't get an actual sighting for another 24 hours, when a documentary we were watching about alien infiltration in science fiction got interrupted by my Beloved spotting a movement across the fireplace towards the bookshelves.

Getting myself suitably gloved up, I tentatively ventured into the corner, shifting all manner of furniture and television equipment in order to do so, and, moving book after book, I finally came face-to-face with the beastie myself, so that I can now confidently identify it as being of the Long-tailed Field persuasion.

I thought that I had it trapped, slamming book after book towards the back of the shelf to restrict its area of operations, but, sadly, when I removed the final volumes, this tiny magician had vanished, and there was nothing to be found other than the vast hole in the masonry from when the workmen fitting the boiler before last had re-routed the gas main.

That we immediately covered with as many bits of stone and rock as we could easily lay our hands upon, with plans already in hand to return to the DIY store and immure the lot with whatever ready-mix concrete-y stuff and massively toxic expanding foam I could get my hands on and hopefully easily handle, then we vacuumed and swept up whatever debris we could and pretty much abandoned the living room once again.

I then, of course, freaked myself out totally by going onto the internet and reading about the horrors and diseases associated with this sort of situation, before making it worse by reading about their breeding habits. I'm now so very freaked out by this, in fact, that for a week I've hardly slept and barely eaten, and, despite the fact that it does appear to be restricted to one room, I'm convinced that the little devils are scurrying about everywhere and all of the time.

There's also the massive sense of shame that we've allowed our lives to come to this, which is going to be very difficult to shake off...

I'm even prepared to freeze a little by not turning up the thermostat despite the cold snap, thinking that it might pack up and go off in search of somewhere far cosier.

Then, everything went quiet, and we had no sightings for about four days, possibly because we were heading to bed and hiding under the duvet at about seven o'clock in the evening due to abject terror. We started to relax a little, thinking maybe that shutting off that hole had driven it elsewhere and it wasn't until we got home later on Friday evening, having finally managed to get ourselves to the DIY store and get the equipment we needed for a weekend of cleaning, sealing and reclaiming our home from the intruder, that we saw it again.

And so, knowing that this way lies madness or, at the very least, a phobia or three, we've decided that it's time for us to stop playing Mr and Miss Nice Guy and get seriously mechanical and old school on its furry little backside, despite the fact that we might have to rescind our "AutumnWatch" credentials.

Of course, you realise, this means war...