Or it might be Mrs Warty – I’m not sure how you tell the gender of a Common toad, and this one wasn’t hanging around to let me have a second look anyway. Those warts aren’t really warts, of course – they’re swellings above glands in the skin that can secrete a poisonous substance that acts as a defence mechanism.

Though they’re not the most attractive of creatures, toads are, according to my Fauna Britannica, ‘highly intelligent, learn quickly and can be tamed, and they are extremely long-lived (40 years at least)’. Apparently, they also have ‘a marked homing instinct and will return to the same resting spot in some damp corner time after time’, so perhaps I need to go back for another look at this one.