Stephen the gardener found out where Harriet Bantam had been getting out, a bit of wire netting had come adrift. So he fixed it and that’s one problem solved.

Sadly, old Jabba the Cluck has died. She had been fine, her usual feisty self. I had fed them some treats in the run and I noticed her blocking the doorway back into the henhouse, deliberately so that a small hen couldn’t pass her. But the next morning, I took out some more treats and she came rushing out, turned too sharply and slipped and then couldn’t get up again. I lifted her up and she ate the food and could walk although, unsurprisingly, she looked a bit stiff-legged. Later, she was in the henhouse with her head hunched into her neck, which was a bad sign. I took in a bowl of water and put down corn, and hand-fed her some mealworms, which she gobbled up. I went and checked again and she still was hunched. I put a ladder, so that she could hop up to a nest box if she wanted, but didn’t hold out a lot of hope and, indeed, she died overnight. Scrabble is the oldest, but she was next, at 9.

I told the scaffolders that I didn’t need the board. Honestly, I know I’m not going to do it and that’s that. As long as the edges are painted, that will have to do.

The wind blowing heartily is, apparently, called Bert and the weather is dreadful in some parts of the country, though not here. All the same, I’ve lit the woodburner. It’s more for cheer than because it’s cold. The newspaper hasn’t been delivered, which is disappointing. I give the Sunday paper to my sister, because I don’t much like it and the Saturday one easily lasts me two days, but I’ll just have to read online today. We’re going out this evening, to the ballet. I’ll go out soon and give the chickens their mealworms, because I’m pretty sure they’ll go to roost early.