She unhooks the empty canister from the black sealant gun and wipes her hands on her canvas dungarees. She thinks briefly of Mette and how horrified her niece would be if she could see her now. Mette, with her big corporate job and perfect apartment, wouldn’t countenance doing any kind of DIY herself which makes Helga even prouder of her efforts. Mette is always telling Helga she can’t do things now that she’s over seventy. She thinks that she needs to go back to Denmark to be near her, but much as Helga loves her, the idea doesn’t really appeal. Mette is fairly controlling and Helga knows their relationship works best with some sea and land mass between them.

Remembering that she’s got some bird seed in her pocket, she takes some in her fist and sprinkles it on the little patch of asphalt for the wood pigeon. His brown-grey chest has a rainbow sheen and the white ring around his neck looks like a handsome ruff.

‘Night, night,’ she says. The bird takes a few steps towards her, spreads his wings then folds them back, slotting them in with a little wiggle. He nods his head and makes a coo that sounds like a friendly chuckle. ‘Don’t take any grief from them, OK?’ She nods over to the chimney stack where the seagulls live. She calls them Terry and Julie, after The Kinks’ song ‘Waterloo Sunset’. It used to be her and Linus’s song. Terry often pecks at the kitchen door and Helga lets him in and feeds him scraps. He’s particularly partial to a bit of bacon rind.

At the end of April, he and Julie will take it in turns to incubate their eggs. They usually have three or four chicks in May and then Helga won’t be able to venture out onto the roof. She knows the neighbours will probably complain again about the noise. Not the nice couple next door, but the nasty woman with her no-good boyfriend on the other side. They can’t stand the squawking in the morning, but, as Helga pointed out, there’s no point in calling the RSPB, as the gulls are classed as migratory birds and therefore protected by law.

It annoys her that people have got it in for the seagulls. Why can’t they accept that these beautiful white marauders are part of the landscape? The ways she sees it, the clever seagulls have a lot more of a right to be by the sea than the people. She’s always secretly amused when the tourists get their ice creams and chips stolen, although the council bang on about the fact that seagulls can carry E. coli and harmful bacteria. But Helga can’t fathom all this ridiculous health and safety nonsense. What ever happened to common sense? She often thinks the world has gone mad.

Taking care with her footing, she backs down through the hatch with her metal tool box, bolting the loft access securely above her head and holding on to the rung. She feels dizzy for a moment and squeezes her eyes shut until the feeling passes.