Day 696

The houses in our town all have at least one gargoyle perched on the corner. They act as rain spouts mostly, useful little things though some are quite frankly beyond grotesque but that's just personal preference. You see over the years they've gone from just useful decorations to status symbols like the latest phone or car.

You can tell who's better off not just by how well kept their house is (though most of ours are the usual grey stone and greyer tiles that are so common in our area of England) but by how deformed their gargoyles are and how many there are. The norm is one single gargoyle (usually named after someone's great, great, great something-or-other) perched on the front right corner, spout pointing neatly to a small section of garden we call a Pyke's Den.

We didn't always have so many gargoyles and honestly few outside of the town even know about our little custom. They have no idea that our housing regulations specify that any and all buildings (including, but not limited to, sheds, barns, shops, storage facilities and garages) must have a minimum of one gargoyle perched on the front right corner above a physical Pyke's Den or a representational one.

Of course some newcomers don't understand and don't like the gargoyles, they try to remove theirs or worse - they succeed in removing theirs. Daft buggers never last long after that. Those "tragic accidents" are directly linked to not having a gargoyle - believe us we've tried to go without and it always ends in somebodies death. We've lost whole families all because they thought the gargoyles were too "icky" for their modern "sensibilities".

Mine's called Angus after my great aunt's grandfather that she always told stories about. He had one hell of a temper which makes his name perfect for a gargoyle - the nastier the person behind the name, the better it works. You see they protect us like all their kind do. You see them on those ornate cathedrals and skyscrapers all for that same reason.

You don't see them move about much any more, not like they used to. I miss the way Angus would scuttle down the drainpipe and roam about the front garden chasing hedgehogs and bats. He always did love bats-in fact some morning you could still see their little wings poking out of his mouth! Such a mess he made at times, like most gargoyles his age. Somewhere in their eighties they start to rampage a bit, kill small nocturnal beasties and the like. They settle down eventually, always do.

We haven't had anyone move into town for almost twelve years and it makes you wonder if the rest of the world's been told about our little stony protectors and is scared of them. It's no skin off our backs but it does mean that our current population of gargoyles are growing bored and that's the last thing we want.When they'e bored they go right back to rampaging only at all hours. Anything smaller than a grown man's waist is a potential target - even if they're a human in a gargoyle-protected home.

We've been tossing ideas about to build smaller gargoyles, like children, for the structures that fall within the minimal building height. You know like dog houses and wheelie bins. It sounds even dafter than having them on sheds but it might keep them occupied long enough for us to draw in some new people and build more houses again.

It might just work. It has to.