OUR greylag geese must have been crossed with a Labrador somewhere along the line. These are the geese that were banished to the large pond half a mile away last summer, but have returned home now that their flight feathers have grown back in. There are five of them, and at any one time at least two will be carrying something in their beak, whether a piece of plastic, twig, plastic plant pot, or a length of baler band.

They also attack objects. I have had to move my car from in front of the house as they were pulling off the wipers on the headlights. Although I have recently blamed John for the necessity to replace the windscreen wipers on the car, as he has a habit of setting them off whilst they are still frozen solid to the windscreen, I am wondering whether I should revise the apportioning of blame and accuse the geese for the shredded state of the rubber on my wipers.

The low temperatures have frozen the water in the outside taps. This means that any water has to be fetched from inside the house - boots and buckets through the kitchen. We have made several attempts to fix some insulating fabric around the taps, but the geese see it as a personal challenge and will spend any amount of time patiently pecking at the wrapping until they succeed in literally pulling it off. As yet, no knot has defeated them.

One of these taps is under my kitchen window and is used to fill a large dog bowl with clean water through the day. This tap does not usually freeze up as it is in a sheltered spot and warmed by the proximity to the house. Recently my kitchen window has become increasingly dirty, to the extent that there is more splatter droplets on the glass than clear space. I need to switch on every light in the kitchen in order to see what I am doing, as I can no longer rely on daylight to illuminate the kitchen. Finally, giving into sloth, I asked John (I am an ace delegator) to clean the window, as I was preparing lunch and having difficulty finding the table in the middle of the kitchen.

Five minutes later, light streamed in. John came back in delighted at a good job well done. "I've topped up the water bowl for the dogs," he said. "Those ducks are making a filthy mess in it." I watched as five greylag geese and six Muscovy ducks waddled over to the water bowl under my kitchen window. Several minutes of frantic wing flapping later, and the kitchen window was back to its muddied state. The ducks were the culprits. With all the water in the puddles and pond frozen over, the only clear water available to them is that in the dog's bowl, and not only are they drinking in it and lapping in it, but when I last looked, two of them were carrying on in a very friendly fashion likely to lead to even more ducklings around the place.

This last issue is quite a contentious subject with one of my neighbours. Apparently, with all the grass frozen over or beneath snow, the ducks have taken to visiting her garden and eating her emerging daffodil shoots. Not only that but they have pillaged her parsley and plundered her brussels sprouts. This is a lady who demands access to all of the farmers' fields to walk her dog, allows the same dog to rob pheasant and partridge nests and chase amongst the sheep, and yet immediately cries foul, or more likely fowl, if any poultry stray onto her vegetable patch.

The joys of village life. Maybe I should tell her that John will wring the ducks' necks, but only if she promises to shoot her dog if it goes onto our fields.

Updated: 11:10 Thursday, January 10, 2002