My father comes for the weekend.

He climbs the staircase one step at a time, counting as he goes.

(my father's earliest memory is of the underside of a heavy utilitarian oak dining table as he his mother and grandmother listen to the bombs raining down on Wimbledon station a few hundred yards away)

My father is suddenly older. His joints ache. He has slowed down

He draws level with me; I am waiting on the landing, aghast as he ascends, slowly counting like a slightly unstable toddler. "Always count the stairs in a new place", he tells me. "You never know if you're going to need to get out quickly in the dark."

I wonder how that would help him in high rise hotels he visits in the Far East and America. Is it for me, this elaborate display and the inevitable moral lesson accompanying it? Or does he spend his nights in these air-conditioned far-off places in abject misery and fear of being trapped in a fire? One thing is certain, and that is that with his knees in the state they're in, he is not counting his way to the 26th floor of any building. Maybe she is made to request a first floor room every time.

He somehow seems more vulnerable yet still not any more likable. He is less abrasive, less acerbic, but it is as though these tics (let's be frank, that is what they are; witness his refusal to trust level crossings to be telling the truth, causing him quite justifiably in his eyes to screech to a halt in front of every one; what news story, what personal experience has caused this perilous habit- he is far more likely to be shunted from behind by a startled driver than to be mown down by a speeding train)- these tics appear to have taken the place of the deliberately challenging unpleasantness.

Ever so slightly flaky neighbour over the road believes that we all go through periods of chaos.

Whilst I wouldn't subscribe to such hippy claptrap, I have to say that the fates are trying to tell us something about chickens.

After the spectacular carnage inflicted on our flock about a month ago, I put some eggs left over from the hens that bought it in the incubator.

The result was four fluffy yellow and red chicks, that hatched on Thursday and Friday.

On Saturday, a bushy-tailed gentlemen came calling again, breaking open the sides of the coop in which all our smallest chickens were living and consuming the occupants. The first I knew of it was when I was woken up at 5:45 am by the sound of a distressed chicken.

A Silkie who had been sitting, broody, in the corner of said coop, was wondering up and down the run in a distressed state, gingerly stepping over the body of a friend and piles of the feathers of her other friends. We had lost 6 in one night. The hallmarks were of a vixen teaching her cubs how to hunt- in all likelihood, they had broken the sides off the coop, scared the chickens into exiting the coop at speed, and caught them on the hoof as it were. The only one still alive was the one who'd resolutely kept her head down and sat on her eggs.

So, 6 down from a month ago + four hatched - 6 from Friday's visit. You do the maths. We now have more cockerels than hens, having chickened out of killing (up till now). The Rhode Island Red Cockerels we hatched last year are now huge and scary to the hens. There's good eating on them though. (quake)

And the chaos continues. Yesterday, between 6pm and 8:30 pm, a very large branch fell off the beautiful pink-flowering horse chestnut that overhangs the chicken run. (photo later when I've got some actual work done) Straight through both the wire fence and the electric fence.

The fates love us and our chickens at the moment, I tell you.

Gosh.

It appears that I may.actually.have.the.day.off.

Right, so what do I do now? (bearing in mind that I'm expecting some more work in later today.) I'm at a bit of a loss. There's that weeding...

"My life ambition is to commit genocide; failing that, I wouldn't mind murdering just one fox with my bare hands".

Should I worry about him?

The boy walked 35 miles in 28 hours last weekend, and was claiming by Monday evening that he could easily have done the 45 mile event. Am I bringing up an ubermensch or a braggard? (neither option especially appetising in the context).

Lost five bloody chickens to a bloody fox this morning. I was woken up by the commotion, went outside with my rake and was in time to save one relatively unharmed from the fox. Sadly it died, presumably from shock, about ten minutes later. Ho hum. Chicken for supper it is then. Am really bloody cross.

Wrists a little better over the last few days though.

We were completely out of fish so I went to the supermarket to restock the freezer.

Having trawled around the aisles gathering together my shopping, I chose a till and deposited the whole lot on the belt.

Till lady started ringing it all up. About two minutes into the process, she suddenly utters a muffled cry, jumps up, calls the supervisor, says "Can you take over please, quickly?" and disappears at a smart run, saying "Oh No, Oh No", under her breath again and again.

Yes reader: Turns out I that out of all the two or so dozen available till staff to whom to present my EU-quota sized catch of the day, I had picked the only one who was severely allergic to fish...*




*She came back a few minutes later absolutely fine.

A huge thumbs up to my friend Zee who completed the London Marathon yesterday despite a nasty fall early on. Her marathon story is on the fundraising page I just linked to- I just hope she hasn't wrecked her knee for ever.