It was piled up all around us. A glorious landscape of food and bedding material. It had built up gradually before our lifetimes, but our grandparents had said that they remembered a time when it was just a row of straggly trees and shrubs, which were constantly patrolled by the two-legged giants.

Since the new rock path had been finished though, the strip of rock running past our area had almost become a backwater. It was only inhabited by ourselves and other four-legs.

The only use nowadays that the two-legs put it to was in procreation. They were fun to watch from the safety of the piles of multi-coloured bags that had been thrown out from their metal boxes.

The ritual of coming together, the disrobing, then the consummation amidst squeals and growls and other strange noises was all very entertaining. The final Ha! Ha! Ha!'s as they put on their covers fascinated us. They certainly had a strange way of multiplying.

Fire-sticks were often consumed afterwards as they sat resting on our grassy banks. They mostly came in the dark, and only in dry weather. The majority of the two-legs covered the grass with fabric, perhaps their seed had to be caught in this way. Most of them were very careless though, leaving some of their seed behind in see-through containers. At first we had studied these for days, even weeks, in the hope that we would see little two-legs born. All we got though was a gradual disappearance of the containers as they were covered in leaves and soil. Inevitably the bags of treasure would absorb our attention, and we'd lose track of everything else.

Others also used the bushes and hollows that we lived in. Large four-legs patrolled the area, and used their fangs and claws to tear open the latest piles of bags. Their reddish-brown coats blended well with the surroundings, and they could be hard to spot. They never gave us any trouble. We were much too quick for them, and although they'd take our babies if we hadn't hidden them well enough, they were no match for us.

Lots of the stuff the two-legs abandoned here was of little use to us. Great square boxes, with no food in them. We did get bedding out of some of them, but usually we paid those things scant attention. Occasionally we'd have a bonanza as we came across big floppy treasure that was full of soft hair etc. Most of our nests were made cosy with this material, but we had to fight off even our friends to get it.

From time to time we had our evening searches interrupted by weird two-legged behaviour. They'd arrive in one of their metal boxes, its staring eyes lighting up bushes, its roar frightening our children, and then they would climb out with a great crashing of metal.

Their next trick would be to soak the metal box with a foul-smelling fluid, and set fire to it. The two-legs would then run as fast as they could down the rock strip.

Some of us were occasionally unlucky. The two-legs would put their box over a nest. Mostly they didn't give us time to rescue our babies and they would be consumed in the flames, or died by being covered with the hot sticky substances that dripped from the metal boxes as they burned.

Fire was a big enemy to us, and in the hot season the two-legs method of sacrifice would occasionally set the shrubs and trees ablaze. These would sometimes have to be put out by packs of yellow and black two-legs pouring tons of water on the bushes and us from their big red metal boxes.

Being aware of this, we dug our nests deep, and mostly survived, but if we were caught in the open we would have a frantic dash to avoid cremation.

I think the two-legs realised this though, and had built us an escape route. The long strip of rock that they used for their transport was quite wide, two of their metal boxes could pass each other on it. By crossing this we were able to get into the trees on the other side.

This was the territory of other four-legs, so we didn't venture any further into it than we needed to. We'd cower there until the fire was out then dash back to our own side.

Another hazard we had to face was the routine of the two-legs who brought their own four-legs to root and do their business in our hedgerow. This was an evil thing – their waste had to be avoided at all costs – the foul smelling gunge clung to our coats and had to be cleaned off by swimming in the nearby water, or, horrible thought, cleaned off as we groomed. These four-legs would sometimes hunt us, not very successfully I might say, and if they did get close we would bite them severely. We'd not see that one again for quite a while.

Much worse than those was the smaller, often stripey, four-legs who definitely hunted us. They worked at night, when we were at our busiest – seeking food for our babies and ourselves. They were fast and lethal. We rarely saw them coming, and when the daylight returned we would see one or two, or perhaps more, of our kin lying dead around us. We are resilient though, and our young soon replaced these losses.

Other strange creatures came our way too. There were the ones that insisted on constantly crossing and re-crossing the strip of rock. The metal boxes sometimes squashed them as the two-legs came down to procreate or leave more bags of treasure. These creatures had no coats as such, but were covered in spines. We left them strictly alone, as we had learned that those spines could be painful – the four-legs though that were brought down on strings sometimes found them when their two-legs freed them. They also learned quickly that spines in your face from poking at them when they'd curled into a ball was agony. We really enjoyed the spectacle as they struggled to shake them off, yawping and whining all the while. Their two-legs would have to help them, uttering strange crooning sounds as they did so.

Now and then in the hot season a very large metal box would roar slowly down the rock strip, the two-legs walking alongside it putting our treasure into its great maw. The stuff that we couldn't eat or use, we didn't mind about, but our supply of food was taken too, so for a day or so we had to grub around for other sustenance.

The famine didn't last for long though. Other two-legs must have felt sorry for us, and soon the multi-coloured bags filled with all sorts of goodies would be falling around us from their metal boxes.

All in all we lived a good life in this land of plenty.