It’s so cold here at the moment. Not great for the young foal that was born last week in the icy field adjacent to the recreation ground on Lansbury Drive.

He must be wondering why he suddenly finds himself in such frosty conditions when only a few days ago he was warm and snug in a much cozier environment.

When we passed him this morning, Audrey looked at me as if to ask, ‘When are the horses going to be stabled for the winter?’

‘When the evil farmer decides they’ve suffered enough.’ I told her.

I know horses are fairly hardy creatures – and I am certainly no farmer – but it seems to me that a newly-born foal should already be stabled. But what do I know?

‘The horses are cold,’ a small Asian boy observed as he passed us on his way to school. ‘It’s time they were hibernating.’

‘Horses don’t hibernate, little fellow,’ I informed him, trying to be helpful.

‘Oh yes they do,’ he replied. ‘And monkeys.’

‘The only animals that hibernate in this country are dormice, hedgehogs and bats,’ I continued.

‘Vampire bats?’

‘No.’

‘Frankenstein bats?’

‘I’m afraid not. Just ordinary bats.’

Silence. Then: ‘You’re weird.’

I just can’t win.

‘Trick or treat!’

‘I’ll have a treat, please.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I’ll have a treat, please,’ I repeated, holding out my hand.

‘But . . . erm . . . we ain’t got any.’ He looked around rather dejectedly at his small cohorts dressed as witches, ghouls and zombies and shook his head. They all shrugged in unison.

‘You didn’t come prepared? You haven’t properly thought this through, have you?’

‘What?’

‘I’m just pulling your leg. When you said “Trick or treat” I thought you were . . . never mind. Let’s just say I never like to miss a comedy open goal when it’s presented to me. Ha ha.’

‘You’re weird. I’m telling my mum.’

I did have a treat in the end: an early night and twenty pages of John O’Farrell’s An Utterly Impartial History of Britain.

Rock ‘n’ roll, eh?

Nice to know that motherly love is alive and well and living in north Derbyshire.

Overheard by me and Audrey in the park this morning:

‘Shanazy, come here. Come here, Shanazy. Shanazy! Come here! Shanazy! Damn you, you filthy little maggot. Wait till I tell your dad.’

She was a pretty little thing, too – for a filthy little maggot, that is.

Aren’t teenagers great.

Whilst wandering through the park with Audrey yesterday evening, a group of adolescents dressed as a cross between Marilyn Manson and street urchins from Oliver Twist, thought it would be fun to shout abuse at us from the relative safety of the dilapidated bandstand in which they had ensconced themselves to smoke joints, drink cider and practice their spitting. To complete their entertainment for the evening, one of them had thoughtfully supplied a large beat-box, out of which US punks Green Day were blaring followed by Jay-Z, shouty American Gangster and rap artist, who was declaring: ‘I’m livin’ the dream!’

It was obvious that most of them had not yet learned how to form sentences but one ambitious young female seemed to have at least a basic grasp of the English language and had apparently decided that she would practice its use on passers-by in general and on me in particular. ‘Dirty Pedo!’ was her opening statement which she followed with: ‘My little sister says she saw you in that bus-stop having a wank and touchin’ yer beano. Pedo! She’s told me dad an’ e’s told t’coppers! Yer f***ing pedo!’

We hurried quickly along, trying to ignore the strident volleys of ‘Pedo!’ and ‘Wanker!’ and ‘Kiddie-fiddler!’

How I laughed! It was so amusing, I thought I might invite a German from the Internet around to the house later in the day to eat me.

I just caught the last of the abuse as we were leaving the park and turning the corner into Victoria Street: ‘Do yer ‘ave sex wiv’ yer dog? Pedo!’ The last thing I heard was: ‘I’m telling me dad yer waved yer dandy at me!’ (I think the word was ‘dandy’, I suppose it could have been any number of things, really.)

I know they have a lot of unexpended energy, but why do these youngsters behave in such a disagreeable way to their fellow citizens? Is it a form of seduction? Perhaps they actually quite like me and can think of no other way of introducing themselves. Or, more likely, it is a territorial impulse and they are simply scenting their ground, marking out their patch. Who knows?

I was mulling these things over in my mind after we had returned to the house. While I was making a cup of Earl Grey in the kitchen, I came to the conclusion that these unfortunate children are merely bored and, due to the depressing environment in which they exist and their uninspired and deprived upbringing, have learned no other way of expressing themselves. Stirring the tea, I spilled some of the boiling liquid on to my thumb. ‘Pedo!’ I yelled at the steaming mug before me.

‘Billy, come down from there!’ his mother chided him in agonised entreaty. ‘Those are your best trousers!’

‘No they’re not,’ shouted the little boy. He scrambled even higher up the wall. ‘These are my climbing trousers.’

Hearing the querulous squeals of little Billy on the rec’ this morning and watching this anxious woman wringing her hands in maternal dismay reminded me of similar happy altercations with my own mother all those years ago. And when the scruffy youngster made reference to his ‘climbing trousers’, I was immediately transported back to my childhood.

I, too, was provided with a pair of climbing trousers: robust apparel intended specifically for rough and lively play. I loved them. I cannot say the same about my Sunday trousers, however. I hated those – smart and grey and always at risk of becoming accidentally damaged thus resulting in me receiving a clip around the ear from my cruel father.

The ones I hated the most, though, were the trousers that belonged to my school uniform. Urgh. It makes me shudder now in disgust just to think of them: Navy blue, too short, too loose and always at risk of falling down around my ankles at grossly inappropriate moments. They never actually did, but the very fact that they had the dangerous potential to do so made my time at St Edmund’s Junior School much less than the cheerful experience it might otherwise have been.

Once again, the filthy urchins of the parish have outdone themselves.

When they turned up at the house last night, they had not even bothered to dress up in the appropriate Halloween costumes or masks. ‘Trick or treat!’ came the inevitable demand.

They were actually shouting at the window because I was pretending that I wasn’t at home. They must have seen me peeping at them through the net curtains, however, because one of them seemed to be looking me directly in the eye. He had an unfortunate twitch in one of his beady, pig-like peepers that made it look as if he were winking at me. ‘You and I know something they do not,’ he seemed to be intimating.

Then I noticed that one of the group was lying slumped in an old wheelbarrow that the others were obviously pushing around with them as they went from door to door. Deformed and inert, the sight of the little body worried me. I thought that perhaps one of them had suffered some kind of epileptic seizure and had collapsed; and because his fellow beggars did not want him to feel left out, they had bravely elected to carry him around with them for the remainder of the evening whilst they went about their difficult work. I assumed – somewhat romantically, I admit – that they were transporting their fallen comrade around in the makeshift perambulator as a noble gesture of defiance against the rest of the village. Concerned for the welfare of the unfortunate child, I opened the door and pointed at the little body. ‘What is wrong with your friend?’ I asked. ‘Is he all right?’

‘Penny for the Guy!’ one of them blurted out as quickly as his scabby little mouth would allow.

You can imagine my reaction. How I wish I had managed to find someone willing to sell me a Taser: I keep looking.

I fully expect to next week have more young beggars at the door with their badly made Guy Fawkes’s in various shopping trolleys and pushchairs shouting Penny for the Guy! and singing Christmas carols in various awkward, augmented keys.

I don’t believe it! There is still more than a week to go to Halloween, yet premature junior beggars in ridiculous costumes are still knocking on my door demanding that I give things to them.

Last night, a gaggle of scruffy little urchins arrived carrying specially designed pumpkin-orange buckets with swirly black ghosts printed on them. The deep receptacles looked as though they could hold a lot of treats. Some enterprising manufacturer of cheap plastic rubbish is making a lot of money this year.

I had given in to my better judgement earlier in the week and bought a packet of Custard Creams from the local Spend and Save (a supermarket for common people) to hand out to the brighter local children who had learned to use politeness when robbing you with threats. However, when I offered one of the delicious biscuits to a tiny boy with a runny nose who looked like he could have done with a good meal, he looked at me in earnest confusion and said, ‘Um, no thanks.’ I was flabbergasted.

One of his companions who was slightly older and much uglier – he looked like his parents often left him to play outside in the road, chasing parked cars with his face – stared at me in disgust and shook his head slowly as if to imply that I had committed some despicable act against humanity. I considered myself lucky to escape a serious egging; I fancy they felt rather sorry for me.

This morning, I have been searching the internet for a company that will sell me a Taser. When I get the inevitable knocks on the door later this week, I plan to leap out and zap the little bastards.