TOUCH wood, cross fingers, and live in hope. So far, so good. The single foot and mouth outbreak over the tops in Crookedale has not spread in the best part of a month and life in Beggarsdale is returning to a cautious normal. Almost.

Jetset is back from his business trip, the Money Grubbers are back from their cruise, and Teachers Tim and Tess have returned to their cottage after spending several weeks with friends in the city.

Even Owd Tom has come back to the Beggars' Arms, although still dressed in one of those head-to-toe protection suits and stinking evilly of disinfectant.

And it was there, on Monday night, there came as big a volte as faces ever get (that means roughly U-turn in French, kiddiewinks).

Tim and Tess, you see, have become green finger addicts thanks to all the programmes on BGC (the British Gardening Corporation) and, before they left, they had made over their rather damp plot into a marsh garden complete with decking, gazebo, and a raised and very expensive herb garden.

This is because they also watch BCB (British Cookery Broadcasting) and think Nigella is rather swish.

So herbs they must have and, unlike most of us old-time gardeners, bought them as plants from the garden centre rather than growing them from seed.

But they returned home to a scene of total devastation. Not a sprig of organic Italian broadleaf parsley. Not a scrap of variegated sage nor a crumb of coriander. All gone, down to the good earth.

What they did have is a fine crop of bunny rabbits. Hundreds of them, big ones, medium sized ones, and little baby ones which, with great gratitude, had built themselves a nice new warren under Tim's prized decking.

As B&Bs go, rabbit style, this is absolutely five star: a good waterproof roof to keep out predators and gourmet meals a hop-skip-and-jump away. Bunnyland bliss, to be precise.

Now Tess, as LoCoPoCoThoPo (Local Commandant, Politically Correct Thought Police) is, of course, anti-bloodsports.

She is also a vegetarian who only reluctantly wears leather shoes after an experiment with plastic ones that gave her trench foot after a single day's teaching.

But having stood aghast at the wreckage of weeks of work (and not a few hundred pounds) she cracked. And that's what brought the two of them creeping shame-facedly into the Beggars' seeking out Owd Tom.

"Don't laugh too much, Tom," said Tess in a whisper. "But we need your help. Could you bring Ferocious Fred around?"

She was referring to Tom's ferret. Or rather his ex-ferret.

Tom chortled, blew a huge cloud of acrid pipe tobacco into Tess's face, and said in a voice so loud that they could hear him down The Lane at the WI: "Tha's too late, lass. We buried the owd beggar a coupla weeks since. Did'tha not know?"

Silence. Then, from Tess, "Oh dear, what shall we do now?"

Tom belched more smoke: "Shoot the beggars. An' eat 'em. Should be reet tasty with all them fancy herbs in 'em."

All we locals laughed but then fell silent again because Tess did look genuinely sad. She shuddered and asked Tim to get her a large chardonnay. "What ever are we going to do now?"

"That's country life for you, lass," said Tom. But even he softened when he realised that here was real distress. "But we'll see, lass, we'll see."

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.