All Creatures

The conversation I was having with Lillian the lay reader in the Lady Chapel was periodically interrupted by a scratching noise coming from the Vestry, as though there was someone there. When we investigated the centre of the noises seemed to be the old chimneyplace. Ah, I thought, a bird has got in, as they have done before. But on removing the tin cover over the hearth it was not an avian presence that was revealed, but a squirrel that zoomed back up the chimney again. I hoped it would manage to climb out and replaced the tin sheet, I thought firmly.

Not, as it turned out, firmly enough. I came back to check something later on and found the beast had escaped and wreaked minor havoc around the room, knocking over candlesticks and covering the tablecloths with horrible sooty pawprints, though I couldn't detect any worse damage. How it managed to make the acrobatic marks you can see in the photograph I can't imagine. I opened the door and chased it out.

Later I recounted the incident to a colleague from another parish who remembered having trouble with a badger at their church. Now, I thought, a badger rampaging round a vestry would be a different matter from a squirrel, but it turned out it had been trapped in the churchyard.