Gladys is getting brave. She’s been on an adventure today and has found her way into the garden behind the house – normally a no-go area for chooks because they keep scratching up my herbaceous borders. We don’t know how she got here but she has found someway in – maybe limbo-ing under the gate, maybe flying over it or perhaps a rabbit hole through the dry stone wall. However she’s done it, she didn’t take her sister Babs with her.

Neither of them have started laying yet and we’d much prefer her to use her energy working out that little trick than to be working on her escapology. We keep watching them to see whether their combs are red enough to start looking for eggs but so far no dice.

She’s happy to be picked up and almost seems to welcome it – we like that in our girls. When DM took her back through the gate, she was reunited with Babs and the two of them were left chattering in chicken-speak about her exciting afternoon. We’re thinking of renaming her Houdini!