As I may have mentioned before, the four ex-battery hens we presently have residing in our garden can be the root of a great deal of mirth.

Sometimes, however, that mirth is at my expense, as happened the other day - and it's at times like these that I really don't find it very funny at all.

With the lighter mornings, the girls get a nice long "play" in the garden now, before I go to work and have to lock them back into the safety of their coop.

Recent winds having blown down the fencing between ourselves and our neighbours, some sort of barrier needed to be constructed in order to prevent the little darlings crossing through to next door, the consequences of which would involve botanical carnage in our neighbours' flowerbeds as well as the possibilty of chickens quite literally crossing the road (and all the danger that entails).

So I awoke at around 8am to some rather disturbing clucking sounds, which seemed to be emanating from somewhere other than the lower confines of the garden, ie. where they should be emanating from.

Worried, I grabbed my dressing gown (I am, don't forget, straight from my bed), rushed down, launched myself into my wellies and hurled myself into the garden - ever the caring chicken-keeper.

Right outside the back door, and thus having broken through the 'barricade' (a poor attempt by my partner, for which my fury would emerge later), Mavis and Maud greeted me with worried-looking faces (yes, they have expressions!) as if to say "we tried to stop them, but they wouldn't listen!".

A quick hunt round the garden, including every corner of the coop, confirmed that the two missing birds were, indeed, missing.

Oh dear.

The only thing to do was leap over the broken fencing into the neighbouring garden, and get those little blighters back.

Except there was no sign of them. This garden was empty of fowl.

Panic began to set in until I heard a familiar clucking to my left - a quick peer over the fence, and there were my two escapees, happily destroying the immaculate lawn of my next-door-but-one neighbour (whom I, incidentally, have never met).

Spotting their entry point - yet another fallen fence panel - operation catch the chickens could finally commence.

Tilly was no problem - she loves a cuddle, and was probably just following her friend for "a bit of fun".

Maisy, on the other hand, was clearly hell bent on freedom, so there then ensued a ridiculous Benny Hill-style chase around this (rather long) garden, me constantly just missing her as she flapped her wings and darted sideways here and there to avoid my clumsy grabs.

After a good half an hour of this humiliating escapade, she eventually decided to evade capture by heading back across the gardens into her own.

My dignity in shreds, I can only hope there were no witnesses to this debacle - of which Dastardly and Muttley would have been proud.

Is there no pride left?

A quiet night in recently entailed watching the Oscar-winning performance of Helen Mirren in the much-hyped film The Queen.

Having always admired Mirren's portrayal of DCI Tennyson in Prime Suspect, I was frankly happy that she'd won one of the exalted statuettes for another role, seeing as she couldn't possibly have won it for the ITV job.

I was therefore "not too bothered" about the quality or not of this film, often a good way to enter into your viewing, I feel.

However, I was gobsmacked at the "quality" of this production, as ludicrously left wing as it was, portraying Tony Blair as the single-handed saviour of the monarchy and a jolly nice chap too.

The utterly lunatic script was an embarrassment to anyone with a functioning brain, and clearly intended for the US audience that would grant it the awards it sought.

A far more apt title would have been 'Blair' - though I'm guessing revenue wouldn't have been quite so good.