Once upon a time, in the dungeons of the chateau of the Emperor Adrian, in deepest South West France, there lived a hairy guinea pig called Mr. Rattletrap, so named because his Ducatti motorbike sounded like a bucket of spanners falling down the stairs. This was no ordinary guinea pig; Mr. Rattletrap was not only bilingual, speaking Guineapigean and Motorbikean fluently, he also played electric guitar, built kitchens and mended lawn mowers.

But poor Mr. Rattletrap was at a certain age in his life where his motorbike leathers were beginning to shrink slightly, so, to cheer himself up, he invited his good friend, the not quite as elderly, lesser-hairy, but equally talented Mr. There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it to visit for a while. On Mr. There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it’s arrival, the two old pals went through their annual ritual of greeting each other, a mutual inspection for signs of ageing, balding and weight gain, none of which was difficult to find, in spite of their increasingly poor eyesight. The big difference this year, though, was that Mr. Rattletrap’s leathers seemed to have shrunk less that those of Mr. There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it, so a re-naming ceremony had to be performed, according to Guinea club rules. Thus Mr. Rattletrap’s new first name became Used-to-be-the-chubby-one, which trips off the tongue rather nicely in Guineapigean, while Mr. There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it was now known as Oy-chubby-boy.

Mr. Oy-chubby-boy There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it always had a wonderful time on holiday in his friend’s dungeon; not only did the two feast on proper bloke food, such as sausages, burgers and chips every day, but he was also allowed to indulge himself, eating the scraps which would otherwise have been given to the dogs (whose leathers appeared to expand while he was there). The two intrepid explorers also went off on their motorbikes into the nearby mountains, where there be dragons, but were so busy riding up and down the narrow, twisty roads, Mr. Rattletrap sounding all the time like a bucket of spanners being dropped down the stairs, that all the dragons heard them coming and fled to the safety of their caves, so the lads had to eat sausage and chips again for tea.

The friends enjoyed their holiday, partaking in many guinea pig favourite holiday activities, such as chopping barrels in half, lugging huge sheets of chipboard up flights of stairs and putting floors down. They also visited their friends, the  Skinneapig family, Mr. Bonnet-ornament Skinneapig and Mr. I’m-just-off-to-dax-to-see-alice Skinneapig, who live in a corner of the soon-to-be-plastered, will-one-day-be-a-kitchen building site in Caupenne d’Armagnac, where, after inspecting the level of water in the moat, they tucked into foie gras and fig tart tatin, chicken Basquaise and sticky toffee bread pudding with chocolate brownie ice cream, the new, experimental recipes on offer that day. I hope Mr. There’s-not-enough-chocolate-in-it’s leathers haven’t shrunk so badly that he can’t get them on to go home!