There can be no other more pampered chickens than ours.
For much of the year they are spoilt rotten, wandering the site at will, hunting for grubs and morsels and being cooed over and by children who every week adopt a different one and stuff it with scraps stolen from their kitchen tables.
It gets so bad that when we call them back into the henhouse in the evenings – for their own comfort and safety it has to be said – for the last few weeks they have refused to come. Leaving us to chase them around the garden in a most undignified manner!
But now? Oh now its a different. The boot is on the other foot so to speak. As the Dome Garden settles down a bit from it’s summer peak, it’s all changed. The chance of a scrap here and a slice of tuna pizza there, has declined. The children have gone back to school so are no longer supplying chocolate digestives and tasty nibbles.
So what happens? Oh yes. Back to the coop they flee, racing for the chicken feed.
Suddenly I am Mr Popular with the chicken fraternity.
Huh!! The hypocrisy of it all. The two faced dilettantes.