This week I had a delicate matter to resolve.

Below we have an innocent looking tea-towel. An Irish linen one. Great at drying dishes and quite an old one. I think I may have even bought this from Harrods in Knightsbridge, London. Every January the sales are often with 80% discounts. The China department is a riot of well healed women momentarily becoming common savages in the quest for Spode. Me I grab tea-towels.

So here is a corner of said tea-towel. Mmm it looks squared off, normal, but maybe a little grubby on that edge.

But hey ho, what this? That’s not right. Why is that corner shredded and what’s all that muddiness?

More investigation needed. Must be some substantive evidence here. Maybe criminal activity? Foul play. Running an inquisitive eye along the edge..what have we here?

Curved marks. Now what makes little curved indentations like that? Wandering off to the rear garden where the chicken and geese runs are, I had a sneaky feeling that I might just solve the mystery.

“Goosies, goosies, where are you?”. A daily ritual of waiting by the gate, usually with lettace or cherries as a treat, until the three gangsters waddle over. There is usually a lot of shouting, a display of “oh look can that be someone coming to visit us…surely not..but let’s go over anyway” sort of nonsense.

Having scoffed the lettace very unceremoniously, usually Barley carefully taking bite sized pieces but Bumble snatching and often taking seconds with her mouth still full, AND trying to honk at the same time, (Bonnie now being a boy quietly waits till last), I had an opportunity to pose some pointed questions.

So what’s this? I wave the tea towel. There is a pause in chewing and Barley hisses.

It’s a tea-towel, that’s right. My tea-towel. We get a low nervous honk from Bumble. And she shuffles her webbed feet in a funny marching way. She also does a funny downward look with her eyes, staring at her feet.

But look. This is how a normal corner looks. But what’s this? It’s looks like someone has chewed it!

At this point Bumble in the middle has an urgent conflab with Bonnie. Heads bob and there is more fast honking and looking at who to blame.

Then Bumble puts her head through to try and grab my tea-towel. Ah got you. I hold the edge up. Perfect match to your beak. Naughty goose. Honk, honk. Are you a naughty goose, Bumble? Honk, honk, honk. Lots of shouting now.

I wag a finger and Bumble waddles off pretending she has told me off instead. A goose trait. Bumble is having none of it!

Then today having decided to leave a wet towel to dry in the sun by the washing line, who should I find having wandered over?

I didn’t put that towel on the edge like that? Look at those little innocent faces!

More shouting. I think we need to move that towel before someone gets in trouble again.

Geese and washing do not mix. Hanging things must be investigated. They must be pulled at. Maybe chewed. Sometimes we pull them off the line altogether and stand on them. Worst we poop on them.

I am to blame really. I forget. I let the geese out to grass and that’s it. An hour later I realize that three goosies are being very quiet. That signals trouble. A quite goose is being a naughty goose. Surprise them and they explode into a frenzie of rhythmic co-ordinated honking, flapping and standing on tippee toes like ballerinas. Is that to look thinner and thus disappear? Probably. But when your a big fat three foot high Tolouse, hardly. But they still try. Sometimes they hide behind the garden fence and pretend to be invisible. Problem is the three pairs of big orange rubbery feet showing under the fence are a giveaway.

I wouldn’t want my geese any other way.