The smell of the fresh-cut grass; the ‘clunk’ of the colliding woods; the gentle and friendly handshakes at the end…

I have looked forward to this moment all winter. Things have gone a bit tits up with various professional stuff recently, and I have been a bit stressed out an’ stuff, and there is nothing quite like a relaxing game of bowls to ease one’s mind back into the pleasures of the English countryside.

“And so I started chasing… well I sort of went after him,” I explain later to the Police Sergeant, choosing my words carefully. He glances at his Constable for support. “I have to say I was pretty pumped up.”

Big A nods in agreement. “That’s when we rang you.”

The Police Sergeant alternately shakes his head and shrugs. “I can only apologise we weren’t there sooner,” he offers. “If we’d have got the message from Control…”

Nobody asks me what I was planning to do if I’d have caught the chap. I cast a nervous eye at my bag, which contains four very heavy bowls woods.

No official action is taken.

“You’re in the Mail on Sunday!” gibbers Big A.

I am taken aback. Fearing some sort of expose regarding the chickens, I hurry over to his place to investigate…

Hm. I drop a note to John Wellington, who is the Mail on Sunday’s Managing Editor. It reads:

‘Dear Mr Wellington,

On page 74 of the March 16th issue of ‘The Mail on Sunday’ you published a 392-word piece headlined ‘Blog of the Week – Adventures of a family man who gave up his high-powered job and moved to rural Norfolk’.

The piece (in its entirety) consisted of copyrighted articles lifted without my knowledge or consent from a website for which I am the registered owner…

[bit more blah, yours sincerely, etc.]‘

Not having worked for the Mail on Sunday before, and a stated wordage figure proving elusive, I pluck a conservative amount out of the air and stick it on the bottom of an invoice, which goes off via the kind auspices of the G.P.O. To the Mail on Sunday’s credit, they pay me my two hundred quid quicker than most biggish companies would, and John Wellington sends me his (what I am sure are sincere) apologies.

There’s nothing quite so Rikfromtheyoungonesesque about people with blogs getting on their high horse about print journalists, except perhaps print journalists getting on their high horse about people with blogs. Clearly, however, there’s a little bit of a mutual-understanding issue here. I always go for cock-up over conspiracy, but one paragraph of his reply to me does seem a bit… a bit not quite fitting in with what I thought things were about.

‘We generally take the view that blogs published on the internet have already been placed in the public domain by their authors and, in case of amateur writers, most people are happy to have their work recognised and displayed to a wider audience.’

Discuss.

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The evening is unexpectedly beautiful; I smile contentedly as I slam the car door. Lugging my bag with me, I step through the gap in the fence and into the arena.

“You’re looking fat this year,” are the words with which I am greeted. I take this with cheery good heart. It is a competitive environment after all – people will take any advantage that they can.

The chickens have taken over my life a bit recently. This is fine, as they are chickens, but I have been getting a bit concerned that it might be getting boring for the readers of my Private Secret internet diary. Fortunately, just in the nick of time, the bowls season has started up once more, bringing with it an injection of fresh excitement.

The pre-season roll-up is sparsely attended; worryingly so. I join Ned, who has a beard, in playing a friendly against Big A and his mate, but if we are to get a strong team out to challenge for the title this year then we may have to recruit new blood. I am hoping that what with all the excitement in the region about the Olympics being held in London in years and years time, I will be able to persuade some more hopefuls to join us.

“Evening!” – a couple more players have arrived. “You’re looking a bit porky!” they call across.

It is worrying. I put on a lot of weight anyway over the winter, as I do not really do any exercise during the bowls close season. Also I am having two dinners a day – one with the Toddler and one with the LTLP. We play a few gentle ends, but I do not find myself out of breath at all, which is encouraging. Maybe I am fitter than I thought. AND there is a slight slope on our green.

The competitive season begins in earnest on Friday. I hope to write up full match reports here, which I know will cause some interest worldwide. For too long the followers of bowls have been starved of information about their favourite passion; web 2.0 will change all that.

It is good to be back in the saddle (which is a metaphor for ‘on the mat’ as you do not use a saddle for bowls, the expression is from riding horses).

Booooooo – we had to shoot Chicken Four.

It lived for only a few weeks. That seems desperately sad and unfair, given that Jeremy Kyle is 43. So five chickens remain: Chicken One, Chicken Two, Chicken Three, Chicken Five and Anne Robinson.

Chicken Four was always smaller than her sister chickens, and it is possible that the strain of coming up to her first egg-production did for her. She became completely paralysed in the leg and pelvis area, and thus was unable to get food or water. There was talk of trying to use an old remote-controlled car to move her about, to create a kind of chicken Ironside without the ability to solve crimes.

I have always been clear in my mind about shooting things – I have no problem if I am subsequently going to eat them, or if they are suffering or in distress (unless they are Jeremy Kyle). For two days, however, Chicken Four remained resolutely cheerful as I popped in to chat to her and to stroke her little head. Not being about to eat a chicken that had been paralysed due to unknown causes, it was difficult to know what to do. Then she fell out of her box, shat all over Short Tony’s conservatory and started making piteous noises. Boooooooo.

Interestingly, the other chickens started laying eggs almost immediately after they heard the ‘bang’. They have clearly been intimidated, although not as much as to stop them making two more escape attempts. I have acquired them some nice new hay from the farm, however, to show that I am not all bad.

Booooooo, boooooo and triple boooooo. I have only been chickening for a few weeks and already I have lost around 17% of livestock. Perhaps this is another thing that I am not cut out to do, like arm-wrestling and getting a proper job. I hope that the other five understand. I would be miserable if I thought they hated me.

Chicken Four.

2008 – 2008.

Chicken keeping is a fickle mistress.

One minute there are six happy and well chickens. The next minute, one becomes very out of sorts, and Short Tony is forced to dip his finger in olive oil in order to stick it up its jacksy.

“I’ve done the olive-oiled finger thing,” he tells me. I swear that there is an aggrieved tone in his voice, if it is possible to have an aggrieved tone in his voice via SMS message. Clearly, I have picked a good time to visit my parents for the day.

We have a short telephone conversation, mainly about the process and results of him having to stick his finger up its jacksy. My mother and father look on, oddly. “Are you SURE you didn’t try to have sex with it?” asks Short Tony. I look around the living room, and decide that it is best just to reply with a ‘no’.

Booooooo – there is a chicken with chicken problems. We were all excited the previous night, as we thought that it was about to lay an egg. It was sitting down a lot, and then sort of bouncing awkwardly on both legs, as if it were on an invisible chicken spacehopper that was ever so slightly too big for it. However, no egg appeared and now it does not seem to be able to stand or move at all.

“I’ll give Len the Fish a ring,” sighs Short Tony. Len the Fish knows all about farming stuff. He turns up later on, out of the goodness of his heart. Short Tony passes him the olive oil.

There is apparently a condition called an ‘Egg Bound Hen’ which is very rare and unlikely to happen, but involves the egg getting stuck on the way out. Clearly its rarity works proportionately to the fuckwitteddom of the person to which the chicken belongs. I try to envisage what the symptoms would be if I had an egg stuck on the way out, using role play, and it seems to fit the chicken’s behaviour.

I receive another communication. There is definitely no egg up there. I get some advice to feed it some olive oil. Short Tony feeds it some olive oil. Different olive oil.

We are a bit stumped now. The chicken is in the emergency isolation ward (Short Tony’s conservatory) and has been given a hot bath and stuff. It does not seem to be able to walkat all, but also does not seem to be particularly distressed; its eyes are bright and it is pecking at food. I do not think that it is just a lazy chicken, though. Perhaps it has had some form of stroke. It is not bird flu. Poor chicken. Can anybody help?

“Have you ever thought of being on TV?”

I blink at the question, and turn to the Pork Butcher. He blinks also, but I am not sure whether this is due to the question or whether it is because that people blink all the time.

The girl is quite foxy, probably in her twenties, and has sidled up to me. It was definitely a sidle – certainly it was on the sidle side of walking. To be honest, I am a bit flummoxed. I am not used to being chatted up by foxy twenty-something girls, whether in front of Pork Butchers or not, and I appear to have lost the capacity to know what to say. I stare beseechingly at a rolled shoulder for rescue, but it just sits there impassively. That is the problem with meat. It is no help in a situation such as this.

My mind races. If she wants to have sex with me, then the best place would probably be behind the Vegetable Delivery Man (with a beard)’s stall. We get along very well and I am sure he wouldn’t mind nipping off for a coffee for ten minutes as long as she promised that she would not do anything revolting with the jerusalem artichokes. I am pleased with my idea, which I managed all on my own without the counsel of any meat whatsoever. No wonder people just eat it and do not appoint it to advisory bodies.

“It’s ITV’s ‘Britain’s Best Dish,’” she explains, spoiling things a bit. “I’m from ITV. Do you cook at all? I see you’re buying lots of good ingredients.”

Boooooooo – she is not picking me up at all. She wants me to be on her television show. Boooooo, boooooo and triple boooooo. I make vague noises about not really being a reality television type of person.

“Do you have a signature dish at all?” she persists. It is odd. I cannot help but be flattered by her interest. I obviously look quite televisual in her eyes. Obviously it is ITV so they are not looking for cooking ability in the slightest, but want people who will grab the housewives and melt them with a rogueish twinkle of an eye. This might be my thing after all. She then spoils it a bit by mentioning that she’s just asked the elderly Pork Butcher, who has turned her down.

I say that I will think about it, take some details, and don’t. They get you on to these things with a combination of promised stardust and ego-flattery, and I am not falling for it. Later on, I pass the details on to Short Tony and Len the Fish, with some promised stardust and ego-flattery, but they do not fall for it.