Last night my friends Olive and Keith stayed at the castle. I’ve mentioned before that Olive does my regular Tuesday night support, and Keith’s a dog and a lover of all things squeaky.

Seasoned readers will remember that I’ve got a collection of highly decorated dog toy pigs, one for each of the first 24 days without a ‘ticcing fit’ since they started. Children and dogs alike often admire these pigs. For Christmas I bought my friend Laura’s kids a pig each, which I’ve decorated for them. I haven’t seen them yet though, so the pigs are sitting in my bedroom, wrapped up and ready to go.

Last week when Keith was here he’d been obsessing about the present pile – in particular the wrapped up pigs – so Olive had moved them out of his way.

But last night there was a moment when things went suspiciously quiet while Keith was out of the room. I went to investigate, and this is what I discovered:

And a very guilty-looking dog.

It was only a few teeth marks, and I squirreled the package safely away. I instructed Keith to go back to the living-room, and he sheepishly obeyed.

I didn’t let on that I was secretly very impressed that he’d been able to identify piggies even when they were well wrapped up. He hadn’t disturbed any other presents and though I’m not a forensic expert those teeth patterns look like tender unwrapping rather than frenzied ripping.

Keith obviously loves piggies as much as I do.

No guesses about what he’ll get from Santa next year!