Hello everyone,

I hope you have all survived Storm Doris. We had a very close shave here.

It was Thursday and the day was a normal day, the beauty parlour had their Thursday specials, nails and beak for a worm, the clucking club were in their clucking corner, catching up on the latest news and Charlie was either asleep or dancing, I am not sure which one.

Suddenly there was this incredible cracking noise and the earth began to shake. It reminded me of that book where the squirrel thinks the sky is falling in.

All the girls and Charlie were wondering what on earth was happening. They stood stock still, not one of them moving, not sure what to do next. Suddenly the big Poplar tree towards the human house began to fall. Oh my, we ran for our lives, not sure what to do, some of the girls were running into each other, Bluie and Blackie bounced off each other about 4 times. If I hadn't been quite so scared I would have found it funny.



We ran for shelter to the old coop and all crowded in huddling beneath it, hoping we would live. The big  tree carried on falling out of the sky towards our new coop. We nestled our heads into our wings and waited to go and meet our chicken maker.....Nothing happened. The ground stopped shaking, the tree stopped creaking. Slowly but surely, one by one we peered out from under the coop. There was the tree, wedged in the branches of another tree....right above our heads....


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"It's ok", squaked Charlie, "look it's got caught in the other tree", and yes it was. The other tree is shaped like a fork and it was caught, we were going to be okay. There was some flying debris with a large branch piercing through our roof and the blue thing, which stops the rain coming, was flapping in the wind like a huge kite.... We thought the whole run might take off!

That night as we took our place on the perch we said an extra little prayer to the big chicken in the sky, and thanked her for keeping us safe.

As we were about to drop off to sleep, Brave leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, "that was a bit too clucking close for comfort Val". It certainly was.

Keep safe and have a clucking good week

Val.

Hi everyone,

Hope you've had a great Valentine's Week. We have had an odd start to this year, in December Bird Flu hit the UK and as a result we have to live in a pen the humans have built for us. It's quite big and spacious but it's not the same as being able to roam freely round The Garden and I haven't had a chance to wander up The Drive for a while. I also haven't been able to hide my eggs from the humans!!

The humans have tried to keep us occupied, we have new logs, corn on strings and some CD's we can play. My favourite is one with S Club 7 written on, it makes a great sound when I place my beak on it and spin it round. The other girls have made up a dance to it and this passes the time. We have also noticed the big dog has one of her legs in a plaster cast, apparently she got injured and has had to have a piece of metal put into her leg. Doesn't seem to have had an effect on her barking though.

The only one of us who seems to be enjoying being cooped up is Charlie, he doesn't have to chase the girls as far and can get them in a corner and do his funny little chicken dance. I found a Valentines Card from him to Brave, which was very sweet, here are the words he had written:

Roses are red, violets are blue
There is no other chicken that's quite like you.

Lots of love Charlie.

I had a boyfriend once, a long time ago, oh he was so handsome but we were separated as I didn't come from the right chickenhood and his mum persuaded him to go to uneggsversity. I wonder what happened to him?

We have been playing lots of games and the human with the big hair also built us a swing. The only problem is it is quite high off the ground so we can only go on it for a little while before feeling a bit sick. The beauty salon girls are doing a roaring trade, as there is not much to do other than get our nails done and have our beaks cleaned. I will be so pleased when we get the all clear and can roam around again and I don't have to listen to everyone's chatter all the  time.

I was thinking perhaps I could put my time to good use and run an "Ask Val" question day.  Let me know what you think, readers could write in with any problems they have and I could give  them the benefit of my chicken experience, normally I know eggsactly what to say :-)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Val