By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

It’s that time of year when la famille Wildlife Gardener hitch the donkey to the cart and trot off to the local showground for the annual bonkersness that is the village fête. Entirely homespun and mentioned in The Times as among the Top Ten best village fêtes in the country, not even the soft soaking rain drizzling down from dark clouds over the North Downs could deter the inhabitants from having a Jolly Good Time.

Highlights this year included: Guess The Combined Ages of Two Pregnant Dairy Cows (in days), Win A Mini (to drive around for the weekend then give back) Terrier Racing, Crockery Smashing, and Slippery Pole Pillow-Fighting as well as big mugs of tea, slabs of coffee and walnut cake and scones and jam served from the tea tent by the doughty ladies of the village.

But what’s going on here?

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Ah yes, the Ferret Bingo. The benchmark of a real country show is the presence of ferrets in some capacity. At our fête they have a job to do. Bert and Betty Ferret, working in shifts, helped raise nearly £150 for local good causes just by running through drainpipes. So how does Ferret Bingo work? As you can see, there’s a holey dustbin with six numbered drainpipes attached to it. For £1 you buy a numbered betting slip 1-6 from Mr WG who is working so hard selling slips that he’s all a-blur:

One ferret goes into the dustbin. Then, to much whistling, twutting, cries of “Come on, Betty/Bert” and ticket-waving, it finds its way out through one of the drainpipes:

Number 6 wins!

Technically, the back legs of the ferret have to emerge from the pipe to win, and nail-bitingly, the ferret can decide to pop back into the pipe and emerge from another one. The holder of the winning slip gets £3, which means, usually, that they have another couple of goes. The ferrets seem to enjoy their work, as Bert furiously tried to bite his way out of his pet-carrier and get back to the field when put in it for a rest period.

There is of course, form to study for Ferret Bingo. How can the outcome be influenced? Do you shout the loudest? Do you wave your ticket at the end of your drainpipe the most? My theory is that, if you can, you stroke the ferret beforehand (not many people do this because they’re a bit smelly) and it recognises a friendly scent at the end of your pipe. How zoologically correct this is I don’t know, but I won £3!