Chicken!

I wonder when the word 'chicken' became synonymous with 'cowardice'? Having been a chicken keeper for a year and half now I think I can say with some authority that a chicken would not be top of my list of 'words-used-to-describe-cowardice'. In my opinion through my close observations of the girls and their behaviour I believe them to be inquisitive, sassy, bold and racy.

'That's not how Mrs Pumphrey behaved this morning when you served up those cauliflower leaves,' said Mrs Miggins.
'I thought she was lobbing a hand grenade at us,' said Mrs Pumphrey, defensively.
'That was because the wind was blowing a gale and I mis-judged the trajectory,' I said. 'And Mrs Miggins is right. There was no need to make all that fuss. No-one ever got blown up by a cauliflower. Or any food stuff come that.'
'You are always telling people you don't drink coffee because it blows you up,' said Mrs Pumphrey.
'Not in a fatally explosive way,' I said. 'Just in a water retentive manner.'

The cauliflower leaves were a present from the chicken's Auntie Jean, who also made me a present of some large kilner jars in which store my passata. I'm becoming a dab hand at passata making, mostly because it is an easy peasy thing to do. Cut tomatoes in half, place cut side up in a roasting tin, drizzle with oil (olive if you like it, sunflower if you don't), sprinkle with sea salt and freshly gound black pepper, roast in oven for 40 minutes until starting to char, then shove through a sieve to extract skin and pips and there you go! Seemples!!

Anyway, the chickens have been brave this week in the face of an interloper in the grounds of Cluckinghen Palace. A previously unseen tabby cat made an appearance and seemed to think it could jump over the back fence into Cluckinghen Palace and stalk about a bit like it owned the place. Miggins, Pumphrey and Slocombe told the cat firmly but politely that he was not welcome by a) yelling at the tops of their voices b) running around him in order to instil a sense of confusion and finally c) sending Mrs Pumphrey to charge at him like a lion bowling for vultures (only in this case a reverse of the cat/ bird scenario). The cat came back twice more, received the same treatment on both occasions and hasn't been seen since.

And also, I think you have to be pretty brave to pass an egg through your lady bits on most days. I mean, I've had two babies and that was enough. Last week, Mrs Miggins did three eggs in 24 hours.

'I didn't mean to,' she said. 'The middle one caught me by surprise.'

I know this because I found it lying out in the middle of the grounds of the North Wing.

And Mrs Slocombe is pretty brave when she tries her feather plucking mischief on the other two. Mrs Miggins and Mrs Pumphrey are very much comrades in arms so any act of stealth attempted by Mrs Slocombe is usually fended off by a two beaked retaliation. She keeps trying, of course, but then she is mad. However, I would like to report that the Slocombe is back up to full featherage (hurrah!) so perhaps she is calming down a bit.

(As an aside, I am currently listening to 'La Traviata, Prelude to Act III' and Pandora is sitting on top of the cat scratching post, eyes closed, swaying slightly, in a complete trance. She looks both cute and funny at the same time and I don't want to make any sudden movements in case she falls off. I have a cat that appreciates classical music!)

So in conclusion, m'lud, I believe chickens to be no more chicken than any other creature and demand the association between 'chicken' and 'cowardice' be removed forthwith and attached to the word custard.