A month of poor sleep caught up with me last night and I was in bed by 8.30, so no time to blog. I was awake around half past four, but that was not bad, overall. I have not given up hope of learning the knack of reasonable sleep, but that’s the eternal triumph of optimism over experience. On the other hand, plenty of time to sleep in my dotage…just in my anecdotage now, of course (I wish I could remember who devised the portmanteau word – I know it was Gilbert Harding who called himself a telephoney, so it wasn’t him – but I don’t wish quite enough to look it up).

I’ve neglected my sourdough starter, so I’ve started feeding it lovingly. I’ve divided and fed it twice, which means I’ve now got enough for three or four loaves, but I’ve got plenty of bread in the freezer. I tried a recipe for sourdough crumpets, which was a disaster – in fact, I tried two different recipes, both of which failed – and some sourdough crackers, which didn’t fail but really didn’t tempt me enough to actually eat more than one. I’ve got a book which says I can dry it out and crumble it to a powder, to use as a topping sprinkled on a loaf, which at least gets rid of it but, in truth, I’ll probably bake it and feed to the chickens. Not raw starter, of course, goodness knows what that would do to their innards.

Talking of chickens, Polly bantam is looking under the weather again. So she’s up here in the coop with Hop, the limping one (still no idea what’s the matter, she may be malingering). I’ve put the coop into the porch, which will pong of chicken, but the forecast is cold this week and Polly is very old. She wasn’t pleased to be taken away from the others, without a high perch to fly up to, but I’ve overruled her. She will be cosseted, whether she likes it or not.

While I’m talking about animals, I don’t think I mentioned that Barney, the shyest barn cat, vanished for a few days last week. That was okay, he’s wary of Solo the tabby with the injured face and he’s the one most likely to forage for himself. But when he turned up, I realised that his offside front leg was injured. He wasn’t putting it to the ground at all, but hopping quite adeptly on three legs. I was worried that he’d been hit by a car and had broken it. No sign of blood or other injury. He seemed less wary than usual and I wondered about trying to catch him. But you only get one chance and, though the cats are not at all aggressive, you can’t blame them if they defend themselves and I’m scared of cats’ claws. So I watched him for a few days. And yesterday, he was limping but putting his paw to the ground. So, whatever’s wrong, it’s not a broken leg and I’ll let him be.

Humans and eCat are fine.