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So it was strange that I found myself in the fishmongers yesterday lunchtime, watching the man who's meant to be in control of all these scuttling creatures trying to prise apart two fighting crabs.

I call them crabs, but these had outgrown crabness, they were beasts: giant-clawed monsters who we were meant to be wrestling home alive for the pan.

They'd met each other on the weighing scales and that was it, the two were in a death grip nobody could pull apart.

So, faced with the prospect of having to herd them fighting down the road, up the stairs and into the flat, which with sideways walking animals may have taken some time, they met an early demise in the shop and were unceremoniously carried home in plastic bags.

I was, I'm afraid, slightly glad. The biggest had claws almost the size of my hand, and what would probably have followed had they arrived home alive would have involved a shellfish take over of the house while I stood on a chair squeeling.

The only thing left to do today, having spent the last few hours trying to fumigate the flat of crab smell, is to persuade the aforementioned Scotsman that filling the bath with rocks and seaweed in order to feed up a lobster until it's grown to a better eating size (I believe we're talking years not days here) is not, in fact, an advantageous plan..

Well, there's a first insight into the life of a young folk musician. I should talk about the new album a little next time I think. I'll put it on the list.

Bella*