Plastered, Caged and Pooped

No, not a firm of dodgy Victorian lawyers, well, not as far as I know, but a three word summary of today.

On Sunday evening, a very nice lady from The Happy Chicks Company telephoned to inform us when the new and large fox-proof hen run for Daisy and Primrose would be delivered.

'It will arrive at 6 o'clock on Tuesday,' she said.

'Good,' said Andy. '6 o'clock.'

'In the morning,' said the nice lady. 'You will be the first delivery of the day.'

6 a.m? Six in the morning???

And true to their word, at 6 this morning a very cheerful gent arrived in a very cheerful bright yellow van, and delivered unto us a large chicken run.

I had already been awake for around three hours prior to chicken run delivery because a) I am in crazy hot flush mode at the mo and they usually start somewhere between 2.30 and 3 in the morning, and b) my hot flush mode has unfortunately been co-inciding with Andy's recent snoring mode. Whether I am flushing because I am waking to snoring, or I am hearing snoring because I am waking to hot flushing I do not know but it's not a good combination either way. 

And I might be triggering Andy's snoring by my constant flinging off and flipping back on of the duvet, or The Hot Flush/ Freeze Down Menopause Duvet Dance as I call it. Either way, Macbeth (as they say, because it's nice to squeeze in a literary reference every now and then just to remind myself I'm a qualified English teacher) was properly murdering sleep last night, what with the flushing and the snoring and the half- listening for the alarm so we would be up in time to take delivery of a hen run. 

I don't like alarms. They scare the bejeezus out of me and I can't help but think that starting a day with your heart racing nineteen to the dozen cannot be a good thing. And I am a pretty consistent 6.15 a.m wakee anyway, so unless I need an early start, which is rare, I do without any alarm setting. 

So, I was all crumpeted and cuppa tea upped by 6.20, not to mentioned showered and ready to go. So I did some marching on the spot in front of early morning TV (something else I never do - watch TV in the morning) and by the time I went to work I had almost completed my regulation 10,000 steps a day. 

Fast forward to 4 p.m. I arrived home from work fully intending to have a 'zzzzzzzz' but got distracted into other things and before I knew it, Andy was home and going straight into the garden to erect the hen run. So, down with the Eglu run, down with the current fencing, out with the power tools and 'Grrrr! Let's be manly and build stuff!' I was inside cooking dinner, plus a jam sponge pudding because something was telling me we would both be in need of a jam sponge pud before the day was done. 

And of course, the run building did not go according to plan, it was growing dark and cold, and the hens got confused at their bedtime because their pod had been moved and they were standing where it should have been saying, 'Where's the pod?  We want to go to bed,' and I was going, 'You and me both, but an adult woman going to beddy-byes at 6.10 p.m is ridiculous and besides, I don't want to miss Sewing Bee,' and Andy was going, 'Your pod is down on the patio, you stupid hens,' because he was getting a bit narky because the cordless drill was running out of oomph and cord, and well, we decided to call it a day, so Andy reconstructed the pod and little run and I went inside to dish up dinner because, quite frankly, I was being a useless carpenter's mate.  

And then Andy went back outside to scoop up Primrose who was still pod confused and had squished herself up against the garden fence in an outward-bound-without-a-tent-camping kind of way, and I said, 'Go into the pod, you idiot. We have just spent a lot of money on a new run for you because we don't want you to be noshed by a fox which is exactly what will happen if you sleep al fresco.'

And now it is 8 p.m and I am already for Sewing Bee but Sewing Bee has been pushed back an hour in favour of Lambing Live, which is okayish because it is a nice thing to watch and far better to be pushed back by a lamb than, say, being pushed back in favour of stupid football or motor racing or golf. But I don't know if I am going maintain consciousness until 9 p.m for Sewing Bee because in the last 24 hours I've had three and a half hours of sleep and I am POOPED! 

'But what about the 'plastered' bit of your blog title?' I hear you cry. 'Surely you haven't taken to imbibing of the fermented grape to get you through the day? And you a committed tee-totaller, too.'

No, I say. Plastered refers to yesterday. When the plasterer came out and replastered the chimney breast. For one third of the price we were quoted by that builder I told you about last blogpost. 

And jolly nice it looks, too.