They’ve been caught, flapping high on a tree in our garden for some months. One morning, after a blustery night of wind rattling the tiles and rain tapping the window like a band of agitated drummers, they appeared: witches’ knickers.

I remember that it was a foul night, with shapes and shadows buffeted angrily by unseen forces, so to wake to the sight of the remnants of a collision of witch and branch came as no surprise. But to catch three: the witches must have been flying scared indeed…