The egg mystery is solved

Phew. More dastardly tactics by the Hull Hens have resulted in a drying up of the egg supply in recent days. Either Meabh has secretly mastered the art of walking and has been collecting and then eating them during the day when I'm not here, or the chickens have been trying to create a little brood by hiding their eggs again. Sharp eyed 24Legs readers will note that a clutch was found (and recovered) by the pond 2 weeks ago, however, they've turned to new corners of the garden. The trouble is there are now about 48 corners in the garden as the nettles and bindweed take over the nether reaches and create stretches of jungle. After 4 days of searching over the weekend, a long period of surveillance yesterday morning (in the rain, in my dressing gown, I might add) eventually detected Bernadette (pictured) skuttling off behind a pile of paving slabs and an old patio door. I had to wait until the rain had stopped to shift all this out the way, but there lay an impressive nest containing seven very shiny well-sat-on eggs. Unfortunately for Bernadette, these were never destined to hatch little chickens and are now in our kitchen.

In other news, Meabh continues to guzzle huge quantities of milk, and has been doing lots smiling. On occasion, and in the right light, she might even have started laughing. She'll certainly need her sense of humour living in this house.

Meanwhile, Naomi claims that the blog has yet to feature a picture of her, so here's a picture of her in our garden a couple of weeks ago (with Chris and Eddie), about to bravely head down to the village hairdressers for a trim. Rather her than me.