VICTOR Volvo-Estate, one of the weekend cottagers, turned up a few days ago with two of his children but sans wife, which in itself was the subject of some speculation. But, even more unusually, he actually began to show some interest in village life.

Now Victor is one of the longer-serving weekenders, who bought one of the old Quarry Cottages for a song as a second home some 12 years ago, and was once a regular visitor, along with a car-full of travel sick kids and bags of food and wine from Sainsbury's (ie the family contributed virtually nothing to the village economy).

Now, the kids are in their sullen late teens, all spots and pouts and moaning about "nothing to do" and Victor seems, to put it mildly, a bit fed up. Yet, as a very successful architect with offices in London, Birmingham and Manchester, he would seem to be a man who has everything.

But, surprise, surprise, his first action was to walk into the post office and buy a bunch of magazines, a bulging bag of frozen foods, and some of Mean Mike's most expensive wines. He even passed the time of day, saying he had come up to get the cottage ready for Easter.

As this was the first time he had spoken more than a couple of words to anyone in all those years, this was something of a breakthrough. Then, when he walked into the Beggars' Arms - alone - for a pub lunch, it was revolution.

He smiled at the Innkeeper, ordered his food, and said cheerfully: "The kids are old enough to look after themselves these days so you'll be seeing a bit more of me. I'll have a pint of Ram's Blood, too."

The regulars tried not to smirk. Ram's Blood (abv: 5.5%) is not a tipple for most offcumdens, particularly southern offcumdens, and sure enough, three pints later, he was spilling his heart out as though we were his bosom buddies.

"After all these years," he said, "I know where we went wrong. We spoiled them. Too many toys, you see..."

Now none of us had any idea what he was talking about but were never the less intrigued. "Have another," said Owd Tom with his most impish grin. "Tha needs t'explain that one."

Well, the latest bit of research by the psychologists, it would appear, shows that children given too many toys to play with are so confused by all this generosity that they play with virtually nothing: they can't make up their minds.

As often as not, they prefer the box that a present came in to the present itself (as most parents have no doubt noticed).

Worse still, say these experts, kids with lots of toys develop a miserly streak and won't let their friends near their treasures. So they end up playing on their own and, in doing so, never learn to share imaginative adventures with friends (if they have any, that is).

"My kids have had everything and now, quite frankly, they are both pains in the backside," he went on, somewhat slurred by now. "That's why the wife didn't come: she wants a couple of days of peace and quiet."

Ah well. When most of us Beggarsdalians were kids, our "toys" were trees to climb, becks to dam, fells to climb. And they were all free! Perhaps we were the ones who had everything.

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.