I could tell he didn’t like me. He hadn’t liked me last time I was farm-sitting and nothing had changed – I felt sure of it. He had a cockeyed look that he used to good effect to hide the fact that he was watching my every step, whilst pretending to have a great interest in  well-upholstered hens, or ducks, or goats; wherever I went he followed. He was tailing me – the light was failing and he was tailing.

“What is he doing?” asked one of the gaggle of ducks as they huddled together to confer.

“He’s tailing her,” said the most astute of the five, the one with the longest neck.

“Let’s get a bit jumpy – that should warn her,” they agreed. They had an antipathy to stalkers. Their number had been greater until they had dealings with a rusty coloured and bushy tailed stalker of their own last year.

My stalker, too, was a fine looking chap, apart from his shifty eyes and deformed feet. In spite of his odd toes which went out to the sides at funny angles, as if they were broken, he walked and stalked rather fast. In my green Wellington boots, I had to run out of the duck enclosure to avoid a confrontation. I kept on running, through the hen pen, and the power walking stalker managed almost to catch me up at the gate, which I closed rapidly. Unfortunately, it was a five bar gate with a gap underneath and my lithe stalker limboed easily under the bottom bar and followed me to the stable, where I hid behind the wooden door to the food store. Mr Nonchalant stopped at the threshold to the stable, perhaps to catch his breath, ostensibly to pick at some food I had thrown there a few minutes earlier. All the while I was aware of his beady cock-eyes looking at me.

Malachi, the faithful black Labrador, stood guard outside the stable and the stalker strutted off in an appearance of having business elsewhere. I came out of hiding bearing some of the goodies from the storeroom and went to the goat pen. Only moments after the hungry goats had made short work of their dinner I turned to leave and saw my attacker, his fine feathers ruffled and his wings outspread, jump into the air like Bruce Lee. His funny shaped feet, with talons spread, missed their mark and I ran to the safety of the stable again.

At length, when I had finished feeding all the animals, the bad tempered cockerel gave up the game of cat and mouse; it was nearly dark and he headed to the chook-house (not to be confused with cook-house – chook is an Australian term for chicken). Malachi, Inca and I headed for a meadow on a hillside where they love to run through the long grass and take in the views of the farmstead below and the sea in the distance; they went on ahead while I clambered up the hillside in my wellingtons… and my socks slid off my feet and  disappeared into the toes of my boots. And when I reached the top I saw my companions’ black tails wagging as they ran through  the grass.

Incidentally, I’ve discovered that the cat is called “Horsey”. When I stood at the fence by the field with the horse, and I called out, “Horsey!” to get the horse’s attention, the cat shot out like bullet from the hedge on the other side of the field and was with me in ten seconds flat. He was a bit disappointed to be offered a carrot.