You probably think it a bit odd, though not hinky (US – dishonest or suspicious) I hope, for a woman of my age (whatever that may be) to buy an enormous pack of PG Tips teabags just because it had a free dinky minky monkey looking at me through the packaging; but honestly, how could I resist?  Look at his dear little face – could you resist him? Chris dubbed him Minky.

Having got Minky home I didn’t know what to do with him. I thought he might be a good paintbrush holder… but no, he doesn’t have enough orifices to be of any real use in that area… and he kept mucking around. Poor Freddy, who sits sedately on a special bench (not Special Branch) on my desk every day, quickly became an object of ridicule. Now, as you can guess from the photographs, Freddy has a thing about his baldness, which is why he wears a nice wig made from the “old man’s beard” that I picked last year – no, not Chris’s beard, you know… the plant! Minky pinched Freddy’s wig and later, with his great bulk and weight, the naughty monkey upturned the bench and sent Freddy flying head over heels.

It seemed to me that I should enlist the services of another, larger and more responsible, monkey called Andy. Now with all the babies being born into our family recently Andy has suddenly become weirdly paternal, I say “weirdly” because these days modern parents have completely different ideas on how to bring up babies and children. Needless to say, Andy is rather old-fashioned and believes in the old methods. Andy, who really belongs to my sister Mary (but she couldn’t handle him so we gave her some much needed respite care) was touchingly concerned that Minky should have something to eat; and to think that I had reservations about leaving Minky with the older monkey – I worried that Andy might be jealous. On the contrary, Andy took Minky on his knee and tempted him with the other half of his banana; Minky doesn’t fancy half-eaten bananas – I think he worries about the spit from old monkeys. Andy put the young recalcitrant over his other knee and, after an exercise in tough love, I stepped in and tossed Andy onto the floor… because I love him.

After a nice cup of PG Tips tea and a Tunnock’s Caramel Bar (I know what naughty monkeys really like) Minky said that he would like to emulate me and become an artist – Bless his heart! I gave him a pen and paper, and Freddy, happy again in his wig of old man’s beard (and not terribly bright), was content to let Minky draw his portrait.

“Show me, show me!” begged Freddy when the portrait was done.

“Keep your hair on,” said Minky.