Ten hens, no eggs…again

I’ve been here before. Completely egg-less because my little flock are not laying. 

Two of the ten are definitely excused. They’re cockerels. Hatched earlier this year we now hear a strange co-ck-a-d-d-d at dawn. It sounds like an eager learner driver crashing through the gears but no doubt fluency will come with practice.

The remaining eight I suppose are excused because they’re either too young, too old or mid-moult and too dishevelled to lay. 

Hulanicki’s discarded tail feathers, white tipped with black, are looking lovely in a pot on my desk. Meanwhile she is wandering around tail-less, like some poor dear with dementia unaware that her hemline is caught up in her knicker elastic.

Bare necked Peggy on the other hand, reminds me of a child who has been rummaging around in the dressing up box and has emerged in an over sized vest, already slipping from her shoulders.

Oh well, at least I have the perfect excuse to scrounge some beautiful eggs from a chicken keeping friend...

A look at Lecce

Last weekend I went to Italy with my husband and a tin of coloured pencils.

Breakfast on our flowery roof terrace was served with the recurring quarter peal from a dozen Baroque bell towers.

The sandstone of the Duomo throbbed in the afternoon sun.

We ate olives in the piazza,

ordered coffee from a barista who spoke mainly with his hands,

and simply enjoyed watching the world go by!

Darsham Nurseries… good things come in threes... Nursery, Cafe, Shop

Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.

Rudyard Kipling

Last Saturday I pulled a shameful amount of weeds from my vegetable patch.

So the following day I felt perfectly justified in wandering around Darsham Nurseries trilling ‘Oh how beautiful’.

Forget the shade bit, I enjoyed coffee and incredible pastries in the autumn sunshine and discovered the most enchanting potager.

There were cosmos bobbing among the cabbages and onions sauntering through garlands of amaranthus. Chives elbowed their way past purple ageratum while haughty zinnias commanded over regiments of salad.

In my exuberance I stopped the gardener in his tracks. I detained him with questions about lettuce seeds and climbing beans, annuals and artistry, then departed, inspired to exchange weeds for flowers in my own patch next year.

And the gardener? He got straight back to work of course… there's no sitting in the shade for him!