Every time I go. Ducks. Real ones, with proper bills and everything.

They lurk in the car park. Always in the same place – a small hashed out area in the car park, directly opposite the trolleys. They never move from this spot.

The Trolley Man eyes them suspiciously as he goes about his work. I suspect that he does not approve of them being there as they a) must get in the way of his trolley-pushing occasionally, and b) shit everywhere (but only within the small hashed out area).

The Toddler is delighted and surprised to see them, as she is each time we visit the shop. I buy her off for a bit by walking her over to say ‘hello’ to them. I am hoping that if I show her lovely things like ducks and clouds and sky ect ect then she will not turn into Amy Winehouse.

An old lady approaches from within the supermarket. She is carrying a sliced loaf which, she explains, she has purchased for the ducks as ‘nobody is feeding them’. She offers some of the bread to the Toddler, who flings whole slices at them accordingly. The Trolley Man looks on, appalled.

“That was kind of you,” I murmur, waiting to be shouted at.

We wave goodbye to the ducks – all eight of them, gorging through a mountain of bread. The old lady disappears in the other direction, no doubt to claim her cold weather payment from my taxes and to go on and on in letters to local newspapers about how poor she is. But it is a nice little moment

“Here you are,” she offers. “There are some instructions on here, as well.”

I take the squirrel somewhat dubiously. We drive home – me, the Toddler, and a squirrel.

“I’m Sammy the Squirrel!” reads the instruction sheet. “It is all dark and lonely at nursery at the weekends. Please take me home and look after me!”

I glare at the squirrel. It looks back at me with beady buttony eyes. The Toddler strokes its label, absent-mindedly.

“Please will you write in my special book about what I’ve done with your family, drawing pictures or adding photos,” the sheet continues.

I look at the squirrel. I look at the Toddler. She is two years old now, and still very backward in her essay constructions. In fact all she can really do is draw butterflies – odd GM-mutated ones that just look like zig zag lines. I doubt that she will be able to write a ‘what we did on our holidays – me and squirrel’ piece.

I have not been given homework for coming up for twenty years now, and to be honest I had hoped to have left all that stuff behind me. Now I have to write the bloody ‘Diary of a Nobody’ in vermin form. It sits on the table, clearly looking forward to a few days of adventure and excitement – unfortunately I then completely forget about it and resort to taking a couple of snatched photos of it in the pub.

This does not happen to Martin Amis.