“The idea instead was to cover up the refuse with earth, but the gulls were too quick and got there first.”So, the gulls discovered a ready supply of food that gave them all the fat and sugar they needed, and they moved into cities – Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, etc. Cities, moreover, that provided a habitat very like the cliffs they had just vacated, so, instead of building their nests in precarious crannies that no predator could get at, they built them in mansion-top and high office crannies that were similarly free from predation.I myself was privileged to glimpse the world of gulls not long ago. I went to a piano recital at the Bath Guildhall during the recent festival, and as there was nothing in the room worth looking at, or at least nothing to match the music, I spent most of the time staring out at the sunny roofs beyond – the dome of the covered market first, then a whole succession of Georgian rooftops.It seemed at first very tranquil. There was blue sky in the distance, and the occasional far-off plane, and no other sign of motion Unless, I suddenly realised, you counted the seagulls They were everywhere Gulls preening Gulls flirting Gulls arguing Gulls scrabbling for a chimney top Gulls practising flying. Gulls practising sleeping…It was gullworld up there, like a non-stop avian TV soap, and there was no sign of any human activity whatsoever. As far as the seagulls were concerned, Bath was their city, and all the traffic and shopping and business far below, at street level, was of no more concern to them than the fish in the sea are to a cross-Channel ferry.

For a moment, I saw things from a gull’s point of view.And I realise now why that young seagull in the roadway, in the midst of all the traffic, had a look of denial in his eyes. He simply couldn’t accept that we earth-dwellers had any part in his city, and couldn’t wait for us to get out and go back to wherever it was that we had come from
More from Miles Kington. Last weekend, we celebrated the first anniversary of our move from north London to north Herefordshire. It was 12 July 2002, shortly after 2pm, when we bade farewell to our home of more than eight years, trying not to let our emotions settle on the fact that our third child had been born in the upstairs bathroom. Jane, in the throes of labour, had been encouraged by the midwife to focus on something, so for some reason she focused on the dodgy toilet flush And now that flush was someone else’s to grapple with. Oh, woe was us! As our friends lined up to wave goodbye, it was as well that I was at the wheel.

For my sobbing wife, visibility was reduced to no more than a yard, although, as it happens, a yard’s visibility is all you need on the North Circular Road at about 2pm on a Friday. A week earlier, an acquaintance of Jane’s had said that she and her family were off to live in Malawi for three years “How scary,” said Jane “Not as scary as what you’re doing,” came the reply “At least we’re coming back.”Scary is right But also exciting, exhausting, enlightening and enriching And that just covers my dealings with the septic tank. So here, in no particular order of significance, are 20 things I have learnt on the steep learning curve we have travelled these past 12 months… and if they make the me of a year ago sound patronising, na?, or plain ignorant, I probably was 1. The country contains loads of interesting, broad-minded people living rich, fulfilling lives In London, folk fall broadly into three categories vis-?is the country. There are those who truly yearn to sell up and move to a thatched idyll; those who gaze mournfully into estate agents’ windows on weekends in the sticks but know it probably wouldn’t work; and those who wouldn’t touch the country with a bargepole – in fact, wouldn’t touch a bargepole.