Andy's Dalek footwarmer and the disappearing henhouse

Vera, mon amie en France, and I have been pals for more than twenty-one years now. During this time we've spent many an hour eating cake, drinking coffee and tea and putting the world to rights. We've shared psychic time, gossip time, writing time and OU study time. Together, we've moved on from husbands who didn't deserve us and found husbands who did (lucky Andy and Lester!). Being fire (Aries Vera) and water (Scorpio me) we've had periods of drifting apart and drawing together, like the tides of the sea, dependent upon the various crises and movement in our respective worlds. I have learnt much from my pal over the years.

And even though Vera has been en France for 9 months, and the cake we share is cybercake, we still have a good old natter on the phone once in a while and keep up with each other's lives via our blogs and e-mail.

And so it was yesterday that we chatted for nearly 2 hours about various things like livestock and digging and being writers and bees and worms and are we still heading in the right direction or are we in danger of falling off the planet? It was late afternoon and I'd just cleaned out the Eglu and finished some ironing (and believe me, those chickens can generate a lot of ironing). After sorting out the issues of the day, Vera and I bid au revoir and I sat on the stairs thinking how good it was that even when your friends are far away, the wonders of technology mean they still feel as though they are next door. And then I thought, it's getting a bit dusky outside and then I thought 'Oh, flippin' heck! The hens!' and I ran like a loon down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the back garden.

There I was met with the funniest sight ever and I wish it hadn't been too dark to take a photo because then I could have shared this funny moment with you.
'You might have thought it was funny,' says Mrs Miggins, who still, this morning, can't quite bring herself to forgive me. 'But we thought our house had vanished.'
'Yes,' says Mrs Pumphrey. 'Vanished, like an old oak table.'
'I think you mean 'varnished',' I say.
'I think you've been watching too much Blackadder,' says Mrs Poo, who understood the joke and I apologise to those of you who have never watched Blackadder and haven't a CLUE what I'm wittering on about.

You see, the Eglu pod was still in its component parts, scattered across the garden where I had left them to dry out a couple of hours before when the sun was still shining and Vera had phoned. And the sight that met me was one of the four hens standing in utter confusion at the entrance of where the Eglu pod is attached to the run, only the pod wasn't there and they didn't know what to do. I couldn't help but laugh.

It was like a bunch of ladies queueing patiently for the loo...

So I reassembled the pod, re-made the nesting box and four hens shot inside because it was way past their bed-time. There was a bit of a scuffle during which Mrs Pumphrey gained control of the nest and all four were asleep within two minutes.
'It would have been one minute if you hadn't kept us awake with your laughing,' says Mrs Slocombe. 'Look at the bags under my eyes this morning.'
'They enhance your 'crazy hen' look,' I say.
'Shut yer face,' says Mrs Slocombe, and carries on applying her undereye moisturiser.

Meanwhile, Andy is suffering with his foot. The instep, mainly, and although he hasn't actually said so, I expect it's because I made him stay at the allotment at the weekend longer than he would have liked and he is suffering from 'digger's instep.' To ease the soreness, he is using a hot water bottle. In order to maintain mobility 'twixt living room and kitchen, he puts the hot water bottle along with his foot, inside his Dalek hot water bottle cover and that way he can slop around the house like Richard III.

Unfortunately, the Dalek hot water bottle cover comes complete with sound effects which means that the last two evenings have been punctuated with repeated offerings of 'Exterminate, exterminate', 'You are an enemy of the Daleks', 'Seek, locate and annihilate,' and the Tardis taking off at regular intervals as Andy perambulates his domain. This is freaking Phoebe out. She doesn't like it one jot. Whether it's the sounds or the sight of Andy with an alien foot I'm not sure but she's currently giving him a wide berth.
'And I shall continue to do so until his Dalek foot has vanished,' she says.
'Like an old oak table?' I say, because I never know when to back down with the Blackadder jokes.
'You are so not funny,' says Phoebe.