I looked closely at David's eyes expecting to see dilation of the pupils indicating that he had been waiting for me in the local hostelry but there was no such indication and he appeared to be perfectly normal, or at least as normal as an engineering manager of a Repeater Group can ever be.

However, being somewhat of an animal expert myself, (I have two cats and am a keen fan of Rolf Harris and his Animal Hospital TV programmes) I descended the ladder into the bunker and found to my amazement - nothing! A quick search between the repeaters also revealed nothing. A quick change of power supply soon restored service on GB3CF and GB3UM, which was the original purpose of the visit, and we returned to the surface and went home.

A few days later I was talking to a colleague who is employed by English Nature Conservancy and was telling him about this strange experience at Markfield when he suddenly became most excited and said that what David had probably seen was a Greater Crested Fire Newt and if indeed this was the case then our entire site at Markfield would have to be designated as a SSSI (site of special scientific interest) which would mean immediate closure to both the public and ourselves.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………..or was I dreaming…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.