Our chooks are really jelling as a little unit these days. It’s the first time in ages that we’ve actually had a full complement of eggs, with all of the flock laying.

Clockwise from 12.00 o’clock we have Martha, Dusty, Hill, Lennie and Jack in the middle. Aren’t they lovely? I finally managed to get round to going to the hairdresser this week, to become a bit less “wild woman of Borneo” and a bit more “wild honey” – well, I can dream can’t I? The hairdresser mentioned that she was thinking of getting some chooks in her garden on a modern housing development. She described her garden as “big” but of course on modern estates, big is usually not huge. She talked of getting four hens and all I can say is “good luck to her”.

Our five are decimating our half-an-acre of garden. They’ve tunnelled under the bird table in their excitement to make sure that no crumb goes unnoticed. They’ve completely destroyed my herb garden by flying up onto it (it’s at waist height) and turfing all of the herbs out onto the path in their search for grubs. All of our borders have been rummaged through to such an extent that much of the planting has gone, simply scraped out and eaten, or the scalpings that are in use as mulch are all over the lawn. There is the start of a “dig to Australia” on the lawn, which is usually manned by all five chooks, who take it in turn to jump into the hole and scrape away more soil. All-in-all it’s a right old mess out there.

Combined with our land’s tendency to turn to mud at the slightest sign of wet weather and it’s becoming less like a cottage garden and more like the Somme.

Do I care? Not one jot. Our girls are such amazing characters and give us so much pleasure that we forgive them most of the time.