Garden Hentertainment

'What's this then?' asks Mrs Pumphrey, eyeing the cabbage that's hanging from a string from the remains of the shrub in the back garden.
'It's a cabbage,' says Mrs Miggins. 'You know, the thing that's usually served up on the ground. Or shredded, if it's a pressie from Denise's mum.'
'Right,' says Mrs Pumphrey. 'Cabbage doesn't usually give me headache.'
'Then stop head butting it, you numpty,' says Mrs Poo. 'You need to launch your beak into it. Like this,' and she gives an admirable demonstration, like a spike going into a balloon.

It only takes Mrs Miggins ten minutes to unstick her.

'Why's it hanging up?' asks Mrs Slocombe. 'It's like a pinata. Give me a stick so I can whack it and release the sweets inside.'
'There are no sweets inside,' says Poo, 'and it's all your fault we're having to exercise for our cabbage now, you and your 'I'm-so-bored-I-need-to-eat-all-my-feathers malarkey.'
'Yes,' says Miggins. 'It's supposed to be more entertaining for us. Keep us occupied and distract us from anti-social habits. I told you this would happen if we didn't keep up the knitting circle and bridge club.'

By now, the cabbage is swinging wildly on its string and there is much clonking together of chicken heads.

'And what's this shiny thing?' asks Mrs Pumphrey, who, being the tallest, is having more luck with cabbage catching.
'It's a DVD,' says Mrs Poo. 'Again, dangling there for our entertainment, like we're some kind of demented budgerigars attracted to shiny surfaces.'
'It is rather pretty,' says Mrs Pumphrey, primping her top feathers in the mirrored surface.
'What's it a DVD of?' asks Miggins.
'Cranford,' says Mrs Poo. 'Or possible 'Westlife's Greatest Hits, I can't read upside-down.'
'Oooh, I like a good costume drama,' says Mrs Slocombe who belongs to the 'Costume Drama Re-enactment Society,' and likes to watch 'Pride and Prejudice' and the like dressed in a sprigged cotton empire line gown and matching bonnet and gloves.
'Well, as soon as I can get the DVD player working we can watch it,' says Mrs Miggins.

I cast a fond glance at the hens as they play in their new play area with their dangling cabbage and DVD. I am in the greenhouse planting on the seedlings that are outgrowing their seed trays. Cabbage (red and white), cauliflower, lupins, basil and tomatoes, mostly. And I discover that there aren't 72 tomato plants. There are 74!!!!! Good grief. Needless to say, there is very little space left in the greenhouse now. Careful tip-toeing is very much the order of the day. The hollyhocks are looking good and the broccoli has made an appearance. The runner beans have also sprung to life, just as I was beginning to think I'd got a dud packet. Nothing as yet from the parsley or chives.

And against all the odds, there are things happening in the raised bed! Despite Mrs Miggins getting in there and having a kick-about, there are green shoots popping their heads above the surface hither and thither and definitely not in the nice neat rows they were planted in. I think it's the radish. But then it takes a lot to keep a radish down.

So Spring gathers pace chez nous. I am very dutiful, checking the crops every day, sprinkling a bit of water here and there, coo-ing encouragement to the seedlings just appearing, giving a tomato plant leaf an occasional gentle tweak between my fingers because already some of them are smelling like the promise of the tomatoes to come.

I see the hens have managed to wrench the cabbage from the string and are now kicking it around the garden in a revival of the winning goal of the '66 World Cup Final. I must go and hang it back up, I think. And in a few weeks time, I'll be able to give them home-grown cabbage.

Lucky chickens!