Today is a day dear to my heart.

No.

No, no, no.

I do not refer to this weird pumpkin fetish you all have, nor to the horde of under-10s currently engaged in learning the nuances of the protection racket in the streets of London.

I refer to the fact that it is Mrs Harkaway’s birthday.

I was therefore beyond unthrilled when it emerged that some of the nascent thugs and soi-disant serial killers outside had either attempted an illicit entry of our abode while we were out and about, or had thought it would be a giggle to bugger the lock on our gate. I was actually filled with murderous rage. I fumed, fomented, conspired, inveighed, plotted and planned.

Bad things will happen to you when I view out security tapes, you unnatural spawn of rotting cabbage. I have a special place in the piranha moat set aside for you. Fishmopp, the butler, has been training the vile hound up specially for a moment like this, and he has given me to understand that the underchef here at Harkaway Towers is working on a special recipe for gumbo which features rude urchin and a dash of blighted brat.

Alas, these stout fellows had the night off, so they couldn’t let us in.

I was presented with a vanishingly small number of options, of which the least unpalatable was to summon a locksmith. On Halloween. With fifty minutes to spare until we needed to be in an out again to make our reservation at some superb eatery where they serve peacock and oysters on a bed of Summer Glau or something, I don’t know, Mrs H made the reservations and I wasn’t paying attention.

Thus, the alternative: whip round to Upper Harkaway Castle, where they have even more piranhas than I do, by the way, and borrow a ladder, then nip back to the old homestead, shimmy up the aluminium stairway to Heaven – which is not some sort of crazy sex talk, one’s own hallway is indeed Heaven under these circs – and down into the alley, then open the front door using only the power of my mind (and the key, which of course would presumably work, unless the japesterism had featured an alarming amount of forethought).

“You’re so brave,” Mrs H said, and I climbed the bloody thing and realised that twelve foot is a long way when you’re doing the whole thing in the dark on a mossy, slimy archway over a stone path and haven’t been in the rigging of a theatre or a sound stage for quite some time, and don’t have the usual things like a wee safety harness with you.

There ought to be a photo, really, of me sitting astride the ridge of Mount Harkaway, planting the flag and lowering the ladder down the far side. But there isn’t, because as I say, it was bloody dark.

I got down, got in, and coated the jammed lock in WD40, which didn’t work. (Note: it never does.) Then, because I’ve seen this work in movies, I kicked it.

Which actually worked.

I am totally all goddam that right now.

And we’re off to dinner.

NH

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