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-cum-quay, the size of a single bed has been so enthusiastically decorated with plant containers that the table and chair are lost in herbage.Several hoverflies and bumblebees are visiting the flowers. Chaffinches and sparrows flit noisily through the climbers

and various garden beds. But elsewhere in the neighbourhood, the dense diversity of sheltered hidey-holes has been replaced by ... well, quite a lot of clipped lawn, wood chippings and the modern equivalent of concrete: decking.Where the foxes used to visit us

 along the lines of  "it is nice to have guests once in a while, but I wish he'd go home now, I'd like to get to bed."

by the nocturnal ticking, but it was a tad irritating trying to get to sleep the first couple of nights with this amorous percussion going on all around us. A few times I got out of bed and banged on the wooden rafters with a shoe. It shut them up for a few minutes