Evicting Burton

I must admit, I wasn't expecting it to be so difficult to evict Burton.

The legalities are horrendous, and seem to go back to feudal times. In those days under a complex arrangement of copyhold and turbaria, tenants on the estate where the Great House now stands had possession of their lands until a certain number of lives had come to an end and the tenancies lapsed back to the landlord or landlady - in this instance, me.

In the past my ancestors normally dealt with this kind of legal nicety by burying the offending peasants in the marshy ground down by the brook, or getting them declared guilty of heresy or treason - always a handy way of freeing up property and also inheriting a few quid. But in this allegedly enlightened century, these options aren't available to us. I'd considered letting a few badgers loose in Burton's dwelling - he being notoriously terrified of these monochrome chums - but I can't do that because, incredibly, they have rights - the badgers, that is, not Burton.

And then to compound my problems, "Occupy Husborne Crawley" came along and pitched their tents along my corridor. Through gritted teeth, and with fingers resolutely crossed behind my back, I have promised that if they go away and deposit themselves somewhere less local, I will leave Burton to live in his lodgings in peace.

Or, at any rate, I will try to find somewhere suitable for him to "exchange."