La Chica and I are standing in the kitchen, having a chat, and suddenly she turns pale. I've never seen a Spanish person do that, so for a moment it was a wonderful new experience. But she kept pointing to something behind me, which got me somewhat suspicious. This is, after all, an ancient trick of getting people to turn round. And I wasn't about to fall for a trick as old as my car. But then La Chica fell to the floor in a cold faint, so I figured she wouldn't noticed if I did get fooled. So I turned around.

Behind me was a rat. A fairly enormous rat.

Actually, I'm being modest. It was the biggest rat I've ever seen. Put it this way: I have an eight year old nephew who's tall for his age. The rat, however, was bigger than my nephew.

It was a Really Big Rat.

And seeing it in my kitchen immediately made me wonder what the hell I was supposed to do. Run away? Attack it with a broom? Offer cheese and biscuits? Climb rapidly up to the roof, wrap myself in a Japanese flag, and jump off?

Well, I find that a fun, natural response is screaming and yelling. And when the appeal of that starts to wane, quaking and trembling is a wonderful substitute.

I've spent the last few hours in a dithering panic. I've been keeping the door to the kitchen firmly closed at all times. I'm going to wear shoes to bed. And my shopping list has changed from apples and echinacea to hobnailed boots and a suit of armour. I'm also thinking about picking up a truckload or two of rat poison, a couple of shotguns and a nuclear weapon. Something that says, firmly and politely, "the houses at the other end of the street are much nicer."