It all started with a little bird (no, he didn’t tell me so). He looked so small and cute just walking around big Trago Mills, our favourite shopping complex (for want of a better description), and he caught my eye. He became a bit twitchy when I became a twitcher and took out my mobile camera. The unwilling model walked over to a couple of lovebirds for moral support but they only had eyes for each other and the tiny bird darted off into the air.

The amorous peacock and the interested peahen suddenly noticed that they were stood next to a motorised chariot, the type used by disabled or old people who have difficulty in getting around under their own steam. And now I think I’ll let the photographs finish telling the story…

Well, Harry the pig may not have actually guffawed but he smiled and smiled and smiled, and his tail wagged and his back trotters were particularly animated – you might even call that laughing, inasmuch as a pig can laugh. This charming little ritual occurred whilst Harry ate his breakfast, not just any average breakfast of grey pig food pellets and scrap vegetables; no, the secret to Harry’s happiness is a nice fresh egg on top. Shh, don’t tell Rosie or the hens that I pinched an egg for him!

They couldn’t stick any more of the antics from the mad cock that was carrying on, chasing and pecking at anything that moved, so the ducks decided to make a run for it. And who could blame them? Well, why not? It was just the weather for quasi crazy ducks and silly geese.

Once again, this comes courtesy of Roland…

“Book, book, book”, says a chicken walking into a library.

 “Strange,” says the librarian to himself, “this chicken must want a book.”

 Now he doesn’t normally hand out books to chickens but, under normal circumstances he doesn’t get chickens coming in and asking for books. The librarian decides this is an exceptional case and hands the chicken a book from the best-seller category. The chicken takes a cursory glance  at the cover, then accepts the book in its beak; seemingly rather pleased with itself, the chicken struts out the door.

 Several minutes later the chicken comes back into the library.

 “Book, book , book,” it says sheepishly (although it is a chicken, as you know).

 Again the bemused librarian hands over another book, this time in a different genre. The chicken takes the romantic novel and leaves.

 Five minutes pass and, yet again, the chicken walks back  through the door.

 “Book, book, book,” says the chicken, by now quite cock sure.

 “Ah, perhaps you don’t like chick lit,” says the librarian. “I don’t blame you. How about a detective novel?”

 “Book, book,” says the chicken with a nod of the head that made its red comb shake.

 “Try this one,” says the librarian popping an Agatha Christie novel under the bird’s beak.

 But this time the librarian elects to follow the chicken as it goes outside.

He tails the nerdy chicken down the pavement and watches the chicken cross the road. On the other side is a pond. The chicken drops the whodunit onto a lily pad where a big green frog is waiting.

 The frog eagerly accepts the literary offering, looks at it and, as he puts it on the pile he says, “Readit, readit, readit…!”