When we first moved to Franconia we bought a new car and very fortunately found the lovely Patrick, an insurance agent in Bamberg who speaks perfect English. He took us through the various car insurance options and then asked us the wholly incomprehensible question ‘Do you want marten insurance?’ Huh? Patiently he explained that martens are ferret like creatures and the penny dropped. ‘Oh you mean Pine-martens! But why would we need to be insured against them?’ ‘Well, because they eat your car.’ We thought this was hilarious but we went along with it and got the Marten insurance.  Just as well we did. It isn’t so funny when the little devils have eaten away €200 worth of your wiring. And now every time we get in the car we see little muddy paw prints on the windscreen. They run over the bonnet, across the windscreen, over the top of the car and then, because it’s a Mercedes A class and has no rear end, they slide down to the ground, bashing the rear windscreen wiper as they go.

We used to complain like mad about the foxes in leafy Hampton. They poohed in the garden, spread refuse all over the pavement and woke us up at three in the morning with their piecing shrieks but at least they didn’t eat the damn car!