Frankenstein the Rooster

I have created a monster. About a year ago, I rescued a tiny little chick from a local market which was bald, ugly, and covered in peck marks from the other chicks. A year of good feeding later, and this is what I've ended up with. His head is above my knee level (and no, I am not short, contrary to what my children may say). Can you see that look in his eye??? it's breeding season now, and he has become aggressive. Last night, he tried to attack me in the garden. He leapt up unexpectedly and clawed at my thigh though my trousers. I was stuck behind a rock, and he wasn't letting me out. I yelled and yelled before M heard me and came to resuce me, equipped with spade and metal spike.

More seriously, he's also been attacking the chickens-and pariticuarly going for one of them, who only has one eye and dislikes sex.

So today, he's been kept cooped up and away from them, only being allowed out to peck in the chicken coop in the afternoon. By which time, the chickens had gone over to the neighbouring farmer's house to eye up his cockerels. They don't care, my chickens. They are all the very worst kinds of sluts...but to get back to the orginal point, this bird is now clearly destined for someone's pot. The only question is whose?...and how to kill this monster???It may require a machine gun...

A Full Moon

well Martin was dreading this-the super duper full moon which stared remorselessly into the house last night. A pretty impressive sight once the clouds had cleared. M's theory being that I turn into a raving lunatic everytime there's a full moon.

I have never heard such a load of rubbish in my life.

Took Frank for a long walk in the sunshine this morning. Sourdeval seems to be welcoming the Spring with a brace of building projects. Sod the recession when there are subsidies and grants to be had.
Everything is neat and meticulous-I have a wave of homesickness and nostalgia for piles of rubbish, screaming families, and graffiti. I'm not kidding-all that order and tidiness can get to you after a while.



Even the building plots remind me more of a model railway for some reason than real life.
Even more spookily-There is nobody, literally nobody to be seen anywhere. We heard a big dog bark from somewhere way inside a house, but that was it. The French have all gone.

Spring chores

At last! My carefully calculated programme of phased nagging has paid off and I now have (as a replacement for my broken rotary line) a single clothes line. Just in time-since the sun has really come out the past few days and Spring is finally here notwithstanding some chilly and frosty mornings. To be honest i think I prefer the aesthetics of the single line clothes line to the suburban claustrophobia of the rotary version anyway. As I put the sheets on the line, the wind started blowing and the sheets flapped and cracked in a most satisfactory manner. There is no fabric conditioner in the world which can outdo the scent of fresh air on newly laundered cotton sheets.

The ducks had taken to sitting in a new place in the coop recently, which meant they were depositing their eggs on the concrete floor. so I moved a new nest box into that position and, after the obligatory few days when they spurned my efforts, they've now accepted the change and happily lay their eggs there. I still can't get over the thrill of collecing newly laid eggs.

Mart has been digging out a new bit of vegetable patch. he is a very aggressive gardener. Probably using his garden fork to vent all his frustrations at beig endlessly nagged to put the washing line up. This does mean that Hilda the chicken is dicing with death as she moves closer and closer to his digging area in the hunt for juicy worms.