Biddy snorts, amused, then checks the weight of my letter on her scales and inspects her list of foreign postal prices.

‘I’d be scared stiff to go to bed at night,’ she murmurs, neatly tearing a small selection of stamps from their sheets, ‘I mean you can never be sure. A bit of heavy rain and the clay just … it just slips. And there goes your home! Off a cliff! A high cliff! Into the sea! Everything you own – everything you’ve worked for – all gone! Kaput!’

‘And an airmail sticker, please,’ I remind her.

‘Poor Dr and Mrs Bassett lost the best part of their front kitchen. She said they found the cat in a cupboard almost half-dead with fear.’

‘They were up most of the night calling for it.’ I nod.

‘For the life of me I don’t know why the council doesn’t do more to enforce the demolition order,’ she tuts.

‘Tilda’s place is still perfectly livable,’ I interrupt, ‘and the Bassetts haven’t actually occupied the front kitchen since the last big drop …’

‘You’re all nutty as fruitcakes!’ Biddy mutters, pushing over the stamps and the sticker. ‘That’s two pounds and seventy pence please, Carla.’

I pass her the money, then quickly affix the stamps.

‘Well I suppose we should all just be grateful that nobody was actually hurt on this occasion,’ she concedes, generously.

‘Yes. We should. We are. Thanks.’

‘Although it’s only a question of time if you ask me,’ Biddy persists. ‘There’s no point fighting against nature, Carla. I say that as someone who spent much of their childhood in India – Bangladesh as it now is. The Indians respect Mother Nature. Don’t have any other choice. They know, first-hand, what she’s capable of.’

She hands me my change.

‘I’m sure that’s very true,’ I concede, limply (and I am, too).

Without prior warning, Biddy’s disapproving radar suddenly shifts focus and is now centred on the hapless Clifford.

‘Enjoying that, are we, Rusty?’ she demands, scowling.

Clifford has idly picked up a copy of the local paper from the shop counter and is blankly perusing the front page. He quickly throws it down with a stuttered, ‘Nnn … n … no!’

(Biddy, who was once the headmistress of our local primary school, traumatized several generations of small children with her searching questions, her piercing looks and her perpetual air of slight disapproval until a stubborn hip injury put an end to her reign of terror in 1978 or thereabouts.)

I turn for the door, muttering my thanks, but Biddy stops me in my tracks.

‘Shall I put that in the post-bag?’ she asks, reaching out for the letter. I hand it over, somewhat regretfully (it never feels like you’ve actually sent a letter until it’s been shoved into the hungry mouth of a bright, red postbox. Oh well).

I thank Biddy again and start for the exit. I am actually through the door (jingle-jingle!) and halfway across the little car park before Clifford finally catches up with me, as he inevitably must.