Flora and Jim loved their new riverside cottage and could not believe their luck getting such an ideal spot in their price range. Even the name was quaint, Little Nile. Jim joked that it was just as well it had not been named Little Amazon.

‘People would think we were living in a warehouse!’

The little river that trickled past their tiny garden was actually called ‘The Seven’, not to be confused with The Severn, the longest river in Great Britain.

As they sat in the cosy sitting room enjoying a leisurely Sunday morning Flora sighed with delight

‘…and we did not even have to do any work on it. All newly decorated.’

‘Hmm, I don’t think I could live with that dreadful wallpaper for long’ replied Jim.

‘But it would be a waste to rip it off.’

‘What’s that mark on the wall?’

‘Just part of the pattern.’

‘No, it’s some sort of stain, bigger than yesterday. Perhaps there is a body hidden behind there, it is a very old cottage.’

‘You’re giving me the creeps.’

‘There is a corner peeling off by the ceiling, I could just have a peep…’

To their surprise the paper fell off in one strip revealing writing on the wall.

‘Oh how sweet, a height chart, we could keep that as a feature’ trilled Flora. ‘Five feet ten inches, 2024, some lanky teenager, we don’t know who was last to live here do we, the estate agent didn’t say.’

‘2022, five foot one inch, he must have had a growth spurt.’

‘2019, four foot six inches, a child back then.’

‘2010, four foot 2 inches, must have been very young then, how tall is your nephew?’

‘Doesn’t make sense, in nine years they must have grown more than that, unless that was a different child, pity they did not write their names. We must write their names when we do that with ours.’

‘Our what?’

‘Babies of course.’

‘1995 must have been a baby, two foot one inch, 1980 one foot six inches, must have been the seven dwarves living here, of course, hence the name of the river.’

‘Look down the bottom, can hardly read the writing, 1895, one foot one inch, The Great Flood. What’s that all about, look it up.’

‘I can’t find any great flood for that year and can’t imagine our tiny river flooding, what a hoot.’

‘We certainly would not want a foot of water in here.’

‘No chance after the hot dry summer we’ve had.’