It’s Hard To Be Taken Seriously With A Snotty Face …

Hi All

I can’t say that  was the best weekend I’ve ever known. I went down with a snotty cold on Friday and couldn’t stop sneezing. To my knowledge I have had two contact points with sneezing creatures – one, my granddaughter, Grace, and two, my maran chuck, Grace 2. We started off by calling chicken Grace, Lace, because of her feather patterning, but the fowl very quickly began to show characteristics very similar to Grace the granddaughter, so she is now also known as Grace.

granddaughter Grace never stopped sneezing for the entire time that she was here last Wednesday and she is a kind child, happy to share everything. She has also just started ‘playschool’ one day a week. This is the biggest taboo on the planet. A dozen or so two-year olds all happily sharing their first germs and bugs in a hot stuffy room is the stuff Hollywood blockbusters are made of. Remember the Dustin Hoffman film? Unfortunately I do remember the film but the title has momentarily escaped me – but then I do have a head cold. It will come to me …tomorrow …or the next day.

So granddaughter Grace is a suspect … and then there is chicken Grace. This bloody bird is not much older than six months and is already causing me stress and sleepless nights by being ill. I told you last week that Richard attempted to put his foot down and suggested that I didn’t have any more chickens because I get too involved with them. “They are chickens!” he stated. “Just chickens!”

At the time I let him get away with the flippant comment, probably because I had already been taken over by his cold bug and I really couldn’t be bothered to argue the case with an idiot. However, when on Saturday I sniffed and sneezed and blubbed that I needed to go to the vet and pick up some more antibiotic powder he gave me that withering look of his, the one that he really should only give when I am asleep or have my back turned to him and said. “Is that really necessary?” I blew my nose and peered over the tissue.

“What?”

“I just mean …er…OK”

I had a quick check in the mirror that my nose was clean (nothing worse than lecturing someone whilst they stand staring at your snotty face) and then said, “yes, Richard, I know you think that they are only chickens and yes they are only chickens …in one respect. They were born chickens. BUT the moment that we brought them into our lives they became pets, just like Chea, just like the cats and the dog before Chea. Pets. P.E.T.S! And as such they are looked after like chickens but given the respect of pets.”

I had to raise my voice a bit because he’d decided to switch on the fast-boil kettle which the noise from tends to block out the sound from everything else. A little ploy of his that he doesn’t realise I realise.

Anyway, I fetched the tiniest further supply of antibiotic, got charged another £7.75 for the pleasure, brought it home and then the spent the rest of the weekend, snotting, sneezing and attempting to get chicken Grace to eat. initially she was eating but now she isn’t. She does, however, appear to have stop sneezing so I haven’t given up on her yet. Today will be the fifth day of treatment. I have also treated the other two – just in case.

So, me hearties, I reckon I either picked up this cold from Grace 1 or Grace 2. Baby cold? Avian flu? Whichever?

I can’t type much today because I am too poorly …and I need to go and see if I can encourage chicken Grace to change her attitude and turn the corner into the road of recovery before Richard surfaces. I’m not too sure how I change a chucks attitude but I’ll give it a bash. 

Before I go I’d like to bring to your attention the following link for DOPPLEGANGER by Geoffrey D West. It is FREE today on Amazon for Kindle, so if you would like to help raise Geoffrey’s profile (and I don’t see why you wouldn’t because he’s a really nice guy) pop over and download a copy. It is FREE so, hey dudes, what do you have to lose? Just check that it is still free if you take all day to tootle over there because I’m not sure what time the promotion ends.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doppelganger-Jack-Lockwood-mysteries-ebook/dp/B00B6U64B2

Take care my lovelies x