Did and Sid

That indispensable duo, Did and Sid, visited today. Not together. Though some of their areas of expertise cross over, they don't know each other. Sid first: lugubrious Sid, Eeyore stand-in. I greeted him at the gate and right away he told me, eyes big and tragic, "I've not been good". He didn't mean he'd been evil, spraying graffiti on the church door, setting fire to hayricks, but was referring to that untreated hernia which he has finally been forced to take to the doctor. "And I've been sad," he said, brown eyes watering. "You know, S-A-D, because of the winter." And he stood there like an awkward lanky schoolboy, helplessly, pleadingly. Take me in, his eyes said. Look after me. Oh Sid! Wouldn't it be lovely if I were a jolly apple-cheeked countrywoman with a cosy cottage and a heart of gold, and with a Sid-shaped hole in my life. I made him a cup of tea while he set his mole traps, and got him to smile as I took his picture. When he left he was grinning to himself. It was a very cold morning. I hope my cheeks weren't too rosy.

Eeyore

And then came Did, the complete opposite of Sid, always cheerful, glass half full. And while Sid won't touch voles, Did brought poison. He's so resourceful, such a "can do" kind of man. The lawn is already in a terrible state, so he set to work. He doesn't think it's voles, he thinks it's rats. He placed sachets of blue granules in various places, shoved well in so the birds don't try them. Everyone's got rats this year, he said. But the poison in the woodshed disturbs me: I don't want to be confronted by slimy-tailed vermin when I go to get my logs. Did I say I was a ratophobe? That's a massive under-statement. I'm petrified, putrified of rats. I loathe them. But you know what? I think Did is wrong and it is voles. I've seen the pattern of tracks weaving around the lawn on the internet, classic vole behaviour. I need a nice barn owl, or a feral cat. We'll see.

He's coming back soon to cut down the hedge with his mate Nick. I know Nick already. He lives in a house now but for years his home was a tent on the beach in the summer, and a hut hidden deep inside Dunwich Forest in the winter. When the weather got really cold he moved in with his parents, uncomfortable with the heating and the restriction of brick walls. I don't know how he's coping with having a cottage. Does he still cook on a fire out of doors, and use the facilities of a handy tree? I've never seen him out of shorts, whatever the weather, and he cycles everywhere. You'll see him sometimes late in the evening, cycling from the quiz night in Yoxford to Peasenhall, brown legs pumping, puffing up a hill, pudding basin hair bouncing with the effort. He's a real throwback, a countryman who loves everything about the outdoors.

I asked Did if he'd like me to hire an industrial-sized shredder to deal with the smaller branches and twigs but he said he'd burn them. "That doesn't matter if it's raining even," he told me. "I can burn water!"