Eggactly!

Tabitha laid an egg!!!

Monday philosophy

I’d rather be at home today with the dog and the chickens! I also have a job application to do but I haven’t yet sunk so low that I would actually do it on work time when I have other things, you know, things they actually pay me for, to do…

My partner left for work late this morning and was keeping one eye on the chooks for scuffles and divaesque behaviour but they all seem happy. But they can really pack away the food! They’re on layers pellets and kitchen scraps and well, anything else they can get their tiny little beaks on. We think two are about to lay and that might explain the huge appetites. I think I’d snack between meals if I was shooting tomorrow’s breakfast out of my arse.

It was grey and wet and cold this morning, it was a Monday and my partner and I were both tired. If it was a blind date, you’d feel cheated such was the potential unattractiveness of the day. Yet despite this, I felt quite content this morning walking the dog and thinking about the weekend just gone. We are also going to see this house in Cornwall that I’ve found and that makes me happy as well.

Strange thing I saw on my way to work this morning: a squirrel running across the road using a zebra crossing. Even squirrels know the safest way to cross the road… (But why did the squirrel cross the road, was it to visit our chickens?!)

Chickens x 3!

Well it’s a been a weekend and a half! We made the hen house yesterday; painted it (bright blue!) today and picked up the girls; Artha and Martha this afternoon. That should be the end of the story, except we now have another chicken – whom we have named Tabitha. Our neighbour who gave us the chickens also bought some more for himself, except that one of them is being overly dominant and attacking the others. He called about an hour after we picked up the others and asked whether we would like another one! We agreed straight away. We are keeping them under observation at the moment to check there is no... fowl play (sorry!)

The rain is now coming down pretty hard so it will soon be time to put them to bed for the night, order some pizza and put our feet up – more wine might be nice as well!

Blind panic

It’s a wonderful day – although it had a bumpy start and I now know why the expression “blind panic” exists…

When I gel my hair (this is fascinating stuff…) I take off my engagement ring but otherwise I never take it off. This morning, I did my hair and was fairly convinced that I had put the ring back on. I got to the park and was walking round with a another dog walker friend when I realised that I hadn’t got my ring on – but then seeing as I didn’t have my watch on either, I assumed I had left both at home. I went straight to bathroom when I got back but no ring. That’s pretty much when I started to panic…

Where was it? If I lost it in the park, it would be really difficult to find and someone else might pick it up. How much of a reward should I offer on the posters I was drafting in my mind? We searched the car and the kitchen and the bathroom and we were getting ready to go back to the park to search together when my partner suddenly pointed at my right hand. To my complete and utter bewilderment, there was my ring, on the ring finger of the right hand! I have never put my ring on that finger, and how could I not have seen it? I’m still baffled – but also delighted of course. It’s now back where it belongs on my left hand. Clearly as I wasn’t expecting to see it on my hand, my brain didn’t register that it was there. I felt a bit of an idiot though.

I’ve almost made up my mind not to look for another job. As I mentioned previously on this here blog, I’m pretty fed-up with work, and don’t like what is being done to the organisation as a whole. My response was to look for another job and I even got as far as getting an interview but at the back of my mind I was always questioning how sensible it is – when I plan to move by the end of the year – to jump into another job, barely get settled and then have to leave that. Not just was it sensible, but was it fair to another employer to not tell them of my plans and then leave almost as soon as I had begun? So I think I’m going to hang on in there. I can’t quite commit to saying for definite that I will stay because that makes me feel really miserable and trapped! But I can be quite a level-headed, practical soul and I know it would look better on my CV to leave the job because I am moving to another part of the country; rather than saying I left because I thought the ratio of idiots to normal hard working people was way too high…

My pay has also gone up again and I have to be honest, in a year of big changes, every penny helps!

Our hen house should be here by Thursday. It’s a small Cornish company that are making the house and run and they make each one individually. When my partner called to enquire when it might arrive, she could practically here them banging the nails in there and then. Sadly, one of the chickens was eaten by a fox, but our neighbour is buying us another one to replace her! We did say that it wasn’t necessary but he’s a lovely man and was very insistent. We already planned to take a couple of bottles of wine round, but also, when the chooks start laying, to bake him a big cake to say thank you.

Five day weekend, two day work week: the way forward?

We might get the girls this weekend! My partner received a phone call from the hen house people this morning and they can deliver this week! Sorry, lot’s of exclamation marks but I can’t help it, I’m excited!

It’s going to be a busy old weekend – a friend and I are going to the EDF final at Twickenham on Saturday and then it’s the marathon on Sunday. I’d love to tell you I was in it but clearly, that would be a blatant lie. My partner’s best friend and mother to her goddaughter is running and P, another friend, is also taking part. It’s such a gutsy thing to do, even if you are fit (which they both are). Anyway, we said we would look after the husband and goddaughter because B (goddaughter) obviously wants to see her mum running but there are so many runners it’s going to be impossible to pick anyone out… and on top of all that, we may now be putting the hen house together. Still, can’t complain!

This morning has been a little trying. My assistant has made lots of meetings for me and hasn’t included who I am meeting and where, which is actually quite fundamental to the success of the meeting. Anyway, she’s printed out a list now. I was going to point out that next time it might actually be helpful to start with a list, but I don’t want to interrupt because she’s eating. Again.

But I am determined that my week will be useful and productive so this is a small bump in the road… although using the analogy of roads makes me think of aforementioned colleague again. Whereas I want to get from A – B in a timely and efficient manner, she would rather stop at every service station along the way so she can eat even more food...

Chickens and burgers - but not chicken burgers

I saw a dirty van yesterday on which someone had written with their finger “this van was cleaned by the NHS”. I thought it was a lot more original than ‘clean me’ and ‘I wish my wife were as dirty as this van’.

On Monday we met our two new family members; chicken one and chicken two. It really was a series of strange coincidences: we have been thinking about getting chickens for ages, a friend (who lives in the same road as us) saw some random Facebook status update I did about chickens, his housemate has two ex-battery hens that need new homes and well, you can figure out the rest! We popped round Monday evening to see Artha and Martha (we had to call them something) and they are quite lovely in a chickeny sort of way. My partner sent off our cheque the very next day to order our brand new hen house and run and it should arrive within two weeks after which we can go and pick up the girls! They were in a terrible state before arriving at our neighbour’s but he has looked after them so well they are re-growing feathers, putting on weight and seem calm and contented. I’m very excited about the whole thing.

My partner and I had the day off on Tuesday for an appointment and afterwards we went for lunch at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Dulwich. It was great! I had a pesterello (burger with pesto and mozzarella) only because I saw it and started singing ‘spinderella cut it up one time…’ (This caused my beloved to gently shake her head and laugh at me - not with me, at me!)

She had the mushroom burger and each one was about the size of our heads and was absolutely delicious. I also had an Oreo milkshake which was fantastic and more of a desert than a drink. The staff were nice too. Can’t tell you what it’s like on a busy evening but our experience was very good.

I received a pointless email yesterday that really annoyed me. Someone who was potentially going to represent me/give advice with reference to the film script I’ve sold has turned out to be not very helpful at all and it makes me despair of an industry that is so confusing, unhelpful and unwelcoming to new writers. She actually wrote the email a while ago but I only got it this morning and it was just a waste of time: a few bits of advice that any writer worth their salt already knows and that was it. So I still have no representation and no real legal support but I am apparently a good enough writer to sell a script. Go figure…

Anyway, final thing from me – driving home yesterday, there was this guy in a Ford Focus that was driving quite carelessly but I slowed down and kept my distance and didn’t think much more of it. Until he wound down his window and chucked a load of litter out! I honked my horn and as I passed him (he was turning right I was carrying straight on) he yelled at me and I yelled back that he was a bloody idiot for chucking litter. So he decided to follow me. Instead of turning right, he shot after me and tailed me for just over a mile, presumably so I would be scared and intimidated. I could rant on about this, but just answer me this, when did it make you more of a man to drive badly, chuck litter and then try and intimidate a woman? If you think that makes you a real man, that would make you an even bigger fuckwit mongrel than he was…