A strange thing happened on Saturday.

I went down to the shop to get the paper and some tobacco.

No. That’s not the strange thing – I do that every Saturday. But when I got home Herself asked if I had bought bread.

I’d forgotten [short term memory loss again!], but that happens all the time so that’s not strange.

I went back to the shop and bought bread.

When I got back, the strange thing was happening.

There was a car parked in my gateway.

There is more than enough space to park two or three cars in front of the house. In the past I have parked four. But this one was just blocking the gate. So I had to park outside.

I went into the house and the first thing I saw out the window was a bloke wandering around the garden with a clipboard and a camera.

“Who’s he?” says I to Herself.

“I don’t know,” says she “but he showed me identification. he’s from the government or something”. She suffers from short term memory loss too.

I watched him for a while. He was a distinguished looking gentleman. He took tons of photographs and made lots of notes on his clipboard. He waved to me and smiled when he saw me watching, so he was obviously harmless. He climbed in and out of the bushes and took more photographs. Eventually, after about half an hour he and his car just vanished.

My first thought was that he was CIA or had been sent by Bertie. But he was wearing a tweed hat and didn’t have dark glasses, so I dimissed the CIA. And he was much too intelligent looking to be one of Bertie’s pals.

Next thought was that he was from the Ordnance Survey. But it was Saturday, and he was too old for them. I’ve seen them at work. They are young lads and they rush around in a hurry. And they don’t use cameras.

Then I thought that maybe they were going to re-route the M3 through here to avoid the Hill of Tara, and I was about to be compulsorily purchased. But the government have made it plain that they aren’t going to re-route the M3 for anybody. They have their minds made up on that one, and nothing will shift them.

Maybe he was examining the birds’ nests? Maybe they are going to turn my garden into a National Monument? Maybe he was admiring my wee plot of “herbal tobacco”? Maybe Herself got it wrong, and he was from the press – “Excusive Pictures of Grandad’s House” across the front page of Hello magazine? [But then he would have wanted to interview me, so that’s out].

Maybe he was just an amateur photographer with a new approach? He wasn’t very good, if so, as he missed the more picturesque parts of the garden. He missed the woodlands, and the pond. He missed the pile of old junk in the back woods. He missed the compost heap. He even missed the huge pile of election posters I’ve been collecting for a bonfire.

Strange.

Never mind. I’ll have forgotten about it tomorrow.