A reader writes:
Dear gallimaufry-person, I wish to complain that your web-log is not much of a gallimaufry at all, it’s just all tedious droning on about books you’ve read. You haven’t written a word about your lovely hens in ages. This web-log would be much better if they were in it more often.
Well, dear reader, by a wild coincidence I was about to write a post about those very ladies. Yesterday morning, when fog hung over the whole of Europe, Merle and Anita received an unexpected visitor.
She came in via our neighbours’ compost heap, an unorthodox method of entry.
Since her hosts were unforthcoming with the tea tray, she looked around to see what food was available to the hungry guest.
Then she peered into their little house. This upset Merle, who wanted to lay an egg but was now too unsettled to do so. Anita remained impassive.
The visiting hen concluded that life was better at home, where she has three small fields to roam in and a pack of sisters who provide a superior quality of conversation – not to mention a handsome cockerel with whom to flirt. So she took herself off the way she had come.
Merle laid her egg.