Going publico-loco (Part 2)

Trying to crank up the creative writing muse yesterday was hard work. There was a lot of staring at the laptop screen until I started seeing floaters before my eyes. So I switched off the laptop and stared at an A4 notebook until I started seeing lines before my eyes. I tried wandering around the house a bit, flicking imaginary dust off the cats with my multi-coloured extendable handle feather duster. But nothing doing.

So I gave up and did some embroidery instead.

A hen appeared just after lunch. I was concentrating on a particularly tricky piece of brickwork on my farmhouse- many different shades of one colour, putting one stitch here, and two there, then changing colour for another couple there and one way over there, you know how it is with embroidery, anyway I didn't notice her coming into the living room and when Mrs Slocombe coughed, I jumped out of my skin and stabbed myself in the thigh with my needle and 'Light Tangerine 067'.

'I thought you were on holiday,' I said.
'I was,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'But I came home because I caught a cough from a pig.'
'So you weren't just trying to attract my attention to your presence then?' I said. Stabbing myself in the thigh had caused me to leap up from the sofa and it was at this point I discovered I'd embroidered myself to my needlework.
'No,' said Mrs Slocombe, coughing again like a consumptive Romantic poet. 'If I wanted to attract your attention I'd do this,' and she flung herself at my other thigh and gave it a good hard peck.

'OW!' I yelled. 'What was that for?'
'I wanted to attract your attention,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'I want to know about this book you're writing about us.'

'Oh, I tried to get started on that this morning,' I said. 'But the power of creative thought isn't home today, I'm afraid.'
'Mrs Miggins and Mrs Pumphrey said you'd already been writing about us in your blog. What's a blog?'
'Well,' I said. 'It's like an on-line interwebbly diary. Blog is an abbreviation for 'web log.'
'Oh,' said Mrs Slocombe. She hopped onto the sofa and started fiddling with the TV remote control. 'Like in Star Trek. Captain's log, star date 2746 and all that jazz.'
'That's right,' I said.
'So is a Captain's log a clog?' said Mrs Slocombe. 'Ooooh, 'A Home in the Sun,' my favourite.'
'No,' I said. 'A clog is a type of shoe. From Holland, I believe.'
'I've been to Amsterdam,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'Got a mouse friend there. Lives in a windmill.'
'Nice, ' I said.

Mrs Slocombe turned to me. I could hear her brain ticking on over-time.
'So if the Captain was a pirate and had a trunk, would it be called a caplunk?'
'I think,' I said, 'you are getting confused with a children's game that uses marbles and sharp pointy sticks.'
'Oooh, you shouldn't give children marbles and sharp pointy sticks to play with,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'According to the Health and Safety course I went on when I was thinking of opening my 'Bagel and Schnitzel Bar', if you give a child a marble and a pointy stick, all amount of trouble will ensue.'
'I can imagine,' I said. 'Heather pushed a marble up her nose when she was 3. Or was it a dice? Anyway, it got well and truly stuck.'
'You didn't use a pointy stick to get it out, did you?' said Mrs Slocombe, clearly horrified at the thought.
'No,' I said. 'But only because I didn't have one to hand at the time.'
'No Kerplunk?'
'Only Hungry Hippos,' I said. 'And Chicken Limbo.'
'Tango Pete does a good chicken limbo,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'Apparently it's all in the cunning blend of secret herbs and spices.'

'Anyway,' I said. 'Back to the book.'
'Ah yes,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'Is this a new series of 'How Clean is Your House?' or just one in a series of interminable repeats?'
'Repeats,' I said. 'The new series is on this evening.'
'I do like Kim and Aggie,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'I'd give anything to have legs and hair like Kim.'

I give an involuntary shudder at the thought of Mrs Slocombe, small black hen, wearing a blonde plaited bun atop her mad little head and with a pair of long legs clad in spangly tights peeping out from 'neath a pencil skirt.

'I'm not sure they'd suit you,' I said.
'So, the book,' said Mrs Slocombe.
'Yes,' I said. 'I think there's quite a good market for anthropomorphic fiction.'
'Say again,' said Mrs Slocombe.
'Anthropomorphism,' I said. 'It's where human attributes are given to animals. For example, the ability to speak English, or to experience abstract thought. Or be able to flower arrange, ice skate or hold antique sales in a front garden.'

'But we can talk,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'And ice skate. We made £2, 467 at our antique auction.'
'Yes, but only in my mind,' I said. Oh Lord, I thought, this is going to be difficult.
'So you are saying that everything we hens say and do is a product of your over-active imagination?' said Mrs Slocombe. She picked up the embroidery I'd managed to extricate from my trousers. 'You've missed a bit there,' she said. 'By the chimney.'
'What I am saying,' I said, already realising I was about to open my mouth and say way too much, 'is that in order to make you hens more, er, interesting to my readers, I employ anthropomorphic techniques to your daily activities.'

'Oh,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'I see. What you are saying is that we are BORING!'

And she got me in the thigh with her beak again.

I'd upset the mad hen.

'Well, just for that I'm not going to let you have the present I brought you back from Heaven, ' said Mrs Slocombe.
'Devon,' I sighed.
'You say Devon, I say Heaven,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'Whatever. All I know is that wherever it is they make bloomin' good fudge!'
'I'm sorry,' I said, trying to make a desperate apology. 'I didn't mean to upset you. You're all very interesting, really you are and I love you all to bits.'
'Too late, too late!' sang Mrs S. 'I'm off to tell the others exactly what's going on in this so-called book of yours. Over a nice box of fudge! Hmmpphh!!'

And off she strutted, pausing to cough on my knee on her way past.

You see, it's not easy being a writer. Especially when you find yourself working with a sensitive and temperamental subject. Not easy. But quite fun.