Chickens

Somehow we’ve ended up with chickens. I’m very excited, unlike Monica. Quite out of the blue Pierre turned up with a grotty old sack slung over his shoulder. “Poulet,” he said and released them all over the kitchen. He grabbed my elbow and dragged me to the window, poking a knarly finger in the direction of the garden. “Maison,” he spluttered, making clucking noises and flapping his arms. I peered through the glass and realised he was pointing at the tumbledown shed we’d inherited. “Ah, a hen house,” I said. His face lit up. “Oui, oui, ‘en ‘ouse.”
“What do we want with sodding hens?” Monica grumbled from the touchline, but by that time it was too late to say no. Fresh eggs in the morning, a chuck for the pot every now and then, fluffy little chicks, what more could we want. Good old Pierre.
It took a lot of scrambling under the furniture and bruised knees to gather them all up. It has to be said they were a pretty scrawny lot and most of them had shat on the kitchen floor before I managed to shove them all back into the sack. Monica refused to have anything to do with it and retired to the sitting room with a stormy look on her face and a valedictory, “Don’t expect me to look after them. And the mop’s in the cupboard.”
On inspection, the tumble down shed didn’t actually look like it would be much use. There were several holes in the walls and the door didn’t shut properly. I spent the rest of the afternoon patching it up with old bits of wood I found inside, bashing my thumb painfully in the process. By drinks time it was all done, the chickens were out of the sack and contentedly pecking around at the kilo of rice I’d purloined from the kitchen store. Now it is time to wait for eggs.