For the last few months when I’ve gone out to the garden, especially at night, I’ve had the strange half-formed motion that there would be a puma waiting for me, standing on top of my seven-foot brick wall.

I have mentioned this to my bemused family a few times, but put it down to years of reading reports of big cat sightings in the Fortean Times, and an atavistic survival instinct, but last night I spotted this in the torchlight and realised I might have actually been seeing this subconsciously.

Though I’m sure this will go some way to stop me worrying about terrifying animals lurking on the borders of my property, I can’t help feeling a little disappointed.