CARS parked up on the lane with men peering out their windows through binoculars will generally raise suspicion in John’s mind.

These two seemed to be rather random in their focus, however, and as John drew nearer, one of the men got out of his car to speak to him.

Now any conversation struck up when you have an excitable spaniel and sheepdog on the lead is not straightforward. Moss will want to plant her paws on your chest and Fizz will threaten to bite your ankles. So the conversation took place not at arms length, but at dog leads length.

It turned out they were from our local electricity board and needed to carry out maintenance checks on pylons. They had been told, however, that raptors were nesting locally and that the nest must not be disturbed.

Luckily, the man with a bit of local knowledge had and could soon point out the nest right at the top of a pylon, safely away from any human predators or officials.

This pair of peregrine falcons have been nesting in the same pylon for some years. They can attract quite a fan club of bird watchers so John was surprised that the electricity board officials did not know their location.

He came home quite smug and pleased with himself at putting bureaucracy right, to find a distressed wife turning the house upside down looking for her watch. Now I rarely wear this watch. It is an expensive one. Bought for me many years ago, before I married John, from a prestigious Swiss watch-maker.

It actually does not keep time anymore and when I took it into a jeweller who dealt in the brand, the quote he gave me nearly knocked me off my feet. I decided I don’t need to know the time that badly.

But I do wear the watch occasionally as a dress item and had worn it out that day when seeing a friend who was celebrating a significant birthday. And it was only after coming home, collecting eggs, watering plants, feeding the lambs and taking the bins out to the lane for a waste collection, I realised it had gone. Panic. Hyperventilate. Straw everywhere when I searched the hen houses. Rubbish everywhere when I emptied the dustbins. Plants tipped out of their pots and the sheep frisked to see if they had suddenly had a yen to know what the time was. “Have you looked in the car?” John asked.

Er no, I hadn’t. John did. Panic over. How annoying. He can be so smug when he’s right.