Instead of painting I spent most of this short day removing a rogue number from my new Smart phone. The number, obviously planted in my phone to extort money at a premium rate, had already gobbled up six pounds of my top-up simply by me touching the “Home Number” inadvertently. Consequently, I had to remove all the contents in my phone and “reset”; even so, the number reappeared and I can’t tell you how I managed to eradicate it finally – think I pressed everything possible. By two o’clock I had reinstated all my contacts and reloaded Whatsapp (the free instant messaging app).

My head ached from eyestrain and over-concentration. My head ached even more when I bashed my forehead on the mantelpiece as I bent down to water the pot-plants. It was one of those days.

A walk in the fresh air always clears the head, especially when the air comes from the northerly direction. On our way home from Dawlish Warren via the sea wall we met several of the men in orange who were about to finish, or had already ended their shifts and, despite being cold and tired, they smiled or spoke to us; some even let me take their photographs. They are icons (not acorns). And the sun started going down quite beautifully… at around three-thirty. So glad we don’t live in Greenland!

Yes, I was up early today – twenty to eight instead of eight o’clock – because I had an appointment with the chickens on the farm. As you may know, I’m standing in for Mary while she’s away in Australia so I’m the farm-sitter down at Rosie’s farm, therefore I’m the one who has to let the chickens and ducks out, and feed all the animals.

In spite of my early start, and a decided lack of make-up (who’s going to see me on the farm?), I’m ashamed to say that I still managed to be ten minutes late, something which that fancy rooster obviously wasn’t tremendously happy about. Having opened the hen-houses and given the chickens a generous helping of their special meal mix, I was coming back from the stable tap with a bucketful of fresh water for them when the bigger of the cockerels, the brightly coloured cock, made a bee-line for me. As bold as brass, he ran up to me and jumped onto my thigh. Luckily, today I am wearing incredibly thick jogging pants (not too attractive – alright, ugly – except to that cockerel) and his talons failed to make a deep impression – no blood.

“Get off,” I screamed at him whilst running and still holding the bucket of water in front of me.

The bucket was a shocking pink “gorilla” bucket, one of those large two-handled buckets that builders use, thus I was unable to free a hand and push off the nasty cockerel. He was too heavy to hang on for long – he was off… and off, quite literally, chasing me! He caught up with me (I was wearing Wellington boots, otherwise he wouldn’t have had a chance in hell) and he leapt onto my thigh again, briefly.  He continued to chase me until I had filled all the water receptacles in the chicken run.

Did he hate being cooped up that much? Was it because last night I had let one of the white chickens (from the other hen-house) stay with his brood? Was she really that bad a sleeping companion? Did she repel him? I asked myself these questions and more… Did he not recognise me in that large pink coat, which I’ve never worn before because it was too big, but which fits a treat over five layers of clothing, three of which were heavy jumpers? (It’s quite cold of a morning on the farm.) Perhaps pink is a “red rag to a bull” to him?

Whatever his reasons, shortly I shall be sure to be more careful to house the hens in their proper abodes; I’ll never again carry the water out in the pink “gorilla” bucket (no matter how practical it seems); and I’ll find a coat of a different colour to wear on the farm. Following our little run-around I had my own back by chasing the cock with my camera; but truthfully, I don’t think he objected – he strutted his stuff “as proud as a peacock”.

Superwoman, in the guise of her alter-ego, mild-mannered Betty of Dawlish, reported to her doctor recently; she does, of course, have excellent health but she must keep up appearances to the contrary in order to maintain a low profile (nobody likes smarty-pants, especially when they are worn on the outside of a leotard!). In truth, Betty, thought there would be no harm in having a flu injection this year, the flu being her particular brand of Kryptonite.

As Betty began to descend the stairs to the lower waiting room she noticed an old lady walking up. Before reaching Betty, the old lady lost her footing and would have tumbled back down the stairs if it hadn’t been for the lightning quick reflexes of our disguised super-heroine. Indeed, there was no time to cast off the cloak of Betty; to maintain her anonymity, the rescue had to be performed without drawing attention to herself. Like a speeding bullet (faster than the human eye can see) Superwoman discarded her white stick and darted forward to save the old lady from falling.

“It was just a little trip, nothing to worry about,” the old lady, somewhat embarrassed, minimised the event.

“Good,” thought Superwoman, “my true identity is safe.”

In a short while Betty, who was outside the surgery by now and about to sprint home (if nobody was looking), was caught up by an old man.

“I saw you save that old lady,” he said shrewdly in his Devonshire accent.

“It was nothing,” Betty played it down.

“No it wasn’t. I saw it all. She would ‘ave ‘urt ‘erself bad if you ‘adden saved ‘er. They’d have ‘ad to call the ambulance if it wadden for you,” he persisted.

“Lucky I was there then,” Betty replied modestly and hoped that would be an end to it.

“Do you know what surprised me, m’dear?” he inquired, then answered his own question, “She did’n’ even thank you!”

But our altruistic heroine (my ninety-one year old Mum) felt that she had been thanked, if not by the old lady, then by the old man, and she walked home on air. No, she didn’t fly – as I told you before, she likes to keep a low profile.