The Tassie devils in my neighbourhood keep stealing shoes and laundry, but I adore them | Kelley Swain

The thievery of these little creatures is endlessly amusing to me, but there have been, I’m told, a few rounds of inconvenience

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To have your knickers go missing at a music festival may be seen as evidence of having a great time, but what if you’re at a folk music festival in the lush green Huon Valley of Tasmania, where parents stroll around with children in prams, and the wildest thing happening is an 8pm ceilidh?

The thing is, I’m fortunate to live in that lush green valley, but my neighbours are inveterate kleptomaniacs. A guest who was visiting for the Cygnet folk festival this summer had left some laundry out on my landlady’s deck to dry in the sun, and as my landlady turned the corner, she saw the pair of knickers disappearing slowly between the wooden deck slats. She dived to rescue the knickers; the thief scuttled away beneath the deck. I learned early on that leaving shoes out at night was to kiss your shoes goodbye.