Grey dragon with blue wash on the thigh

The fence at the bottom of the allotment has finally given up, and I have stopped pretending it was the rabbits. Something grey comes down over the rhubarb most evenings now, just after the lamps come on outside the Co-op. It doesn't flap so much as fold itself down the sky, wings sweeping out like a pair of wet umbrellas, and then it drops onto the compost heap and sits there looking at me with one green eye as though I owe it money.

I have been leaving it the cabbage stalks. I know you will say that is how the trouble starts, and you may well be right, because yesterday it left a scorched stripe across the runner beans and a little pile of black flakes on the path that rubbed off on my fingers like soot from a grate. Mr Okafor from number nine swears blind he saw it go over the water tower with a blue glow under its belly, the colour of the sky before rain. I told him he had been at the sherry again, but I went out with the torch all the same.

Here is the odd part. The beans have grown twice as fast since. Every leaf the creature sweeps past turns towards it, as if they are waiting to be told something. I have stopped thinking of it as a pest. Last night it lowered its head into the cold frame and breathed out, very gently, and the seed trays came up warm and green by morning.

I am writing because I think it means to stay the winter, and I would like you to come and see for yourself before the frost, when you can bring your good secateurs and your patience. Bring the cake tin too. It seems to like the lemon one.

Love, Edie