Winston is a rat. He lives somewhere near my garden. He’s brown, with a very long tail. He has a sweet little face. He’s not very old. He’s cute. And he’s very naughty.

I think he must also be hungry. He spends a lot of time mooching around outside looking for food. And he steals the bird’s food.

I have three bird feeders – four if you count the hanging one out the back, but there’s no ladder up there, so Winston doesn’t use that one. But he can shin up the apple tree along hedges to get to the others.

Winston has good taste. His favourite food is the vegan fat block I put outside, filled with tasty bits. He’s not averse to a few nuts either – he likes peanuts a lot. I catch him clinging to the pole with his tiny paws, nibbling them from the hole in the feeder. The bluetits, sparrows, chaffinches, jays, woodpeckers, robins and magpies are very unimpressed.

Of course a lot of local people would shoot Winston. Rats aren’t welcome. They can spread potentially serious diseases, including Leptospirosis, which can lead to Weil’s disease. They can set up home beneath decking, in garden sheds or greenhouses and compost heaps. I try to discourage him by chasing him off and shouting, ‘Go away, Winston.’

He needs to eat – that’s why he’s here. He may be passing through. I’ll have to remove food, water and shelter, which he needs to survive and which will encourage him to hang around. But it’s hard to put the bird food out of reach. I will find a clever way to make it less accessible…

I have two cats, TC and Murphy, who should be discouraging Winston too. Perhaps they are. They stay out all night chasing whatever fauna they can. Inside the house, they purr and fawn on their backs with their feet in the air, trying to be cute to get Dreamies. But the moment they leave the house, they become killing machines. Winston’s days may be numbered.

There are wildlife that I try to encourage. We have hedgehogs – hotchiwitchies – in the bushes. Foxes have their young now and I’ve seen vixens bury them in holes in the garden for safety while they go off foraging, to return to them later. We have tadpoles, fish – the swifts are back. We do our best for all of them.

But Winston? Despite him being cute, he ought to just be passing through. Yet here I am, at the laptop, and there he is, inches away on the bird feeder outside the window, nibbling nuts for all he’s worth without a sideways glance at me. And I’m watching him…

I think this story might go on. I can imagine that, now Winston has had a taste of the good life with the vegan fat cake, he’ll be back for more.

I’ll have to find a way to make sure that he doesn’t see my house as his extension. Instead, I need to turn it into his Room 101.

To be continued…