“It’s just some lovely warm cocoa. I’ll leave it by your bedside”. She might just have well said, “It’s just some eye of newt and skin of toad”, for all the Old Codger cared.

When she had gone he went to lock the door behind her but he knew she would have a spare key so he took the bedside chair and propped it under the door handle to stop her getting in. Only then did he dare get into bed.

In the night he dreamt of when he was a boy travelling on the charabanc to Blackpool, but when his mother turned to kiss him the face he saw was the haggered, witch face of Arabella, it was a nightmare. He woke up in a sweat and could not sleep again for thinking about it.

Next morning sitting down for breakfast he was almost glad when Tammy and Tommy Taylor came over to say hello because he could pretend to ignore the landlady as she fussed around him bringing him the tea, then toast, then egg and bacon.

When he had finished his meal and the Taylor’s had disappeared the landlady came over and said to him. “Oh Mr. Curmudgeon you are so good with children, you obviously adore those two”. The Old Codger thought she must be mad as well as a witch. “You’re bats, I hate kids, especially those two, you old crone”.

The Old Codger ran upstairs to get away from the attentions of the landlady. From his window he could see that the sun was shining and by leaning right out he saw the deep blue of the sea. He was excited to think he was going to the seaside and he got out his beach wear, his shorts, his sunglasses, his sunhat, the rubber ring and  the bucket and spade, and put them all in a carrier bag. He found his pet beetle Boris under the bed and put him in his pocket.

He did not want to meet the landlady again and he knew the creaky stairs would give him away so he looked for another way out.