Tim took a flying visit down to his house in Reading this week. He hadn’t been there since December before lockdown and he’d had an unsafe tree felled in the garden and he knew he’d have a lot of post (including three Christmas cards and two window cleaner bills), plus some everyday maintenance, so off he went. While he was away, I mostly ate eggs. Luckily, Dilly and my friend Mimi have taken quite a lot off my hands, but I’ve still eaten them twice a day this week. Little rotters – the chooks, that is – will go off-lay soon enough and then I’ll be looking for eggs. And then, literally that when they start to lay away in the summer. I’m not quite sure why I keep chickens, really. But when you’re used to eating home-laid eggs, it spoils you for anything else. And chickens are lovely and each has her own personality, so I suppose I’ve answered my own ponder.

Next time there’s a visit to Reading, I hope to go with LT, leaving Wink in charge here. Thinking ahead and assuming the chickens still have to stay indoors, I need to scheme some way for stopping them from slipping past Wink and getting out. Once more than two or three do that, one might as well let them all out, because at least then they will go back in the evening. Otherwise, one has to inveigle them in individually without letting any others out, which I find quite hard enough and she’d find impossible. So we need an ‘airlock.’ I’ll talk to Wince when he comes next. He’s good at this sort of thing.

Otherwise, nothing much to mention this week. Blood donor appointment tomorrow. My downstairs London tenant is leaving next month, after nearly 15 years in the flat. He’s a really great guy and I gave him a faultless reference. It’s lockdown that’s done it, he now wants more space around him, both in the garden and out on the street, which is understandable. I’ve often had a pipe dream of living in one of those flats, which I love, but I’m too used to the countryside and a garden. I’ll be glad when I can leave this garden for a few days, though, for a change of scene.