I bought far too many vegetables, of course. I can’t resist. Worse, I forgot what I’d ordered and bought extra potatoes and carrots. So, having dealt with leftover cooked food, I turned my attention to the contents of the veg drawers. I’ve made minestrone soup and onion, potato and courgette soup. I also did a tray of roasted vegetables for lunch – that is, half of it was eaten for lunch, with an egg.

That reminds me, a chicken has started laying again. Or rather, two have, but this morning’s egg was snaffled by a rat first. I can’t keep them out of anywhere reliably. I hope that Robbie’s promise of the new hen house and run by the end of January will be kept, because that will be ratproofed from below ground to the roof.

The chickens are very happy, now that the weather is milder. I’ve been taking them out a lot of green vegetable trimmings, as well as stale bread and broken biscuits, cheese rind (which I should have kept for the minestrone, of course) and any other likely odds and ends. When the weather was very cold, they were charming. I’d go in and they’d be in a corner, heads drooping and disconsolate. They perked up and came to me and, by the time I’d distributed the treats (mealworms if I didn’t have much else with me) they were crooning and chatting to each other, spirits revived.

Young Mathew, the grandson of Wink’s friend in Chennai, is interested in the chickens, so I looked out some photos for her to email to him. One of the photos was them coming in the door here, which doesn’t happen any more, sadly, as I can’t let them range completely free any more. I just can’t cope with clutches of chicks turning up with a proud mama, several times in the summer. Mathew is 6, a few weeks younger than Rufus and he’s very fond of Wink, his English auntie.

I’ll be a bit busy in the second half of the week, so the Christmas tree and decorations are coming down tomorrow. I’ll also have to fish out all the papers I hid, to tidy up in a hurry, and deal with them. I liked it better when Christmas lasted for twelve days after the event, frankly.