“Have a look at the picture below me,” says Millie Mouse.

“Do you see the part that has been circled in black? Well that’s the end of the first raised bed in the garden, and on the corner of the ‘bed’ is a triangle of wood that holds the raised bed together but mainly it keeps the rain out of my nest.

“So along comes that woman with her long-handled claw tool and she starts cleaning house for me, pulling out all the nice weeds I had growing around my nest to keep it hidden. Finally, she took a swipe at the part under my roof and it was just too close for comfort. I was outta there!

“She was shocked to see how fast I ran. I dove under the rhubarb leaves and held my breath. I nearly died when she pulled out my nest. There lay my babies strewn on the ground like three little bird treats.

“They shivered and shook but I couldn’t help them. ‘SHE’ still held that awful long-handled claw.

“But then she dropped it and ran. I guess I was tougher than I thought, scaring her off like that.

“I should’ve known it was too good to be true. Here she came again, out of the house with a ginormous camera in her hand. She put my babies together and pushed buttons on her camera over and over and over – and all the while, my babies were shivering.

“Finally, she found some common sense – although, if it’s so common, why is it so hard to find? – and she put the babes closer together and curled the nest around them. She pushed the nest back under the corner roof and found some more dried leaf bits to put over the babies.

“I guess she’s not all bad. As soon as she was gone I scampered back home to check on the wee ones. They were so scared. And cold! No coats yet. And of course they couldn’t see where they were going  because they didn’t have their eyes open yet. Talk about ‘Three Blind Mice’.

“My heart is still pounding  like a snare drum, but as soon as SHE is gone, we can all have a nap and pretend it never happened.  I’m so glad the kids didn’t see a thing.”