Hens, Bees and Moles

I could talk about Mrs Miggins having her seasonal moult but it would be all feathers, mud and feathers. I am anticipating her being completely bald by the middle of next week though, so may have to suspend hat knitting in favour of chicken long-john knitting.

I could talk about the fact the sun is actually shining, it is 22 degrees here at the Manor and the Malarkey bees are going for it like Spring is on the way. Which I suppose it is, in the Grand Cyclical Nature of...er, Nature, but we've got to get through the rest of Autumn and Winter first.

I could show you some pictures of the Malarkey Bees that I took yesterday. Look at their fat yellow trousers! They are finding a good source of pollen from somewhere. They are clearly very resourceful.

But I'm going to talk about magazines, because as you know they are one of my favourite things. I have subscribed to a new magazine called 'Natural Health - Complementary Therapies for Your Mind, Body and Soul.' It's an interesting publication (hence my decision to subscribe), a mix of the common sense, the fascinating and the downright mad, crazy bonkers. It has a selection of odd adverts in the back, one of which makes me laugh because it is for something called 'Wart and Mole Vanish'.

Now, I know moles and warts are no laughing matter for those who have them. I have more than my fair share of moles, being a bit of a fair-skinned freckle face type, and occasionally I say to Andy, ' Does this mole on my arm look bigger to you?' and he says 'No,' and that's okay. I don't have any moles on my face though, and the 'Wart and Mole Vanish' seems to focus on facial moles. There is a 'before and after' picture of the top left hand quarter of a lady's face. In the 'before' picture, she has a HUGE mole about an inch above her eyebrow. It looks like one of those false rubber witchy moles you can buy in joke shops, which makes me immediately suspicious of the genuineness of the product. In the 'after' picture, the mole has vanished! The lady's face is now free of mole. But what makes me laugh is that the advertiser saw fit to indicate the now vanished mole using an arrow. Which makes it look like she has an arrow stuck to her face.

Under the 'before and after' pictures is a caption. 'Thank you so much for such a wonderful product!! I am just amazed, it is a miracle in a box!! It has done wonders for my self-esteem.'

And I want to add the extra, 'Now I just need a product to rid me of this troublesome arrow!!'

And then I got to thinking about what miracle I would like in a box. I did a survey of the Malarkey residents...
...Mrs Miggins would like a potion to make her feathers grow back overnight
...Mrs Pumphrey would like something to sort out her turkey neck
...Mrs Slocombe would like five loaves and two fishes
...Tybalt would like a magic vanishing cloak so he can creep past Pandora without her jumping on his head
...Phoebe would like a cat food that ingests itself into her stomach without her having to regain consciousness and go through the trouble of walking to the kitchen to the food bowl
...Pandora said, 'What's a miracle? Can I eat it? Can I play with it?'
...Andy is taking his time to select his miracle carefully and will get back to me but it may involve zero calorie cheese.

And my miracle? Well, it'll be that happy co-incidence in a little place in the country, won't it?