It is quite entertaining I decide, and nowhere near as expensive as people say.

Plus it is amazing how stupid and dangerous some drivers can be on the roads, especially when there are brave patrolmen around who will catch them and send them to jail, using video footage as evidence.

Desperately seeking a new way of keeping myself awake until at least the beginning of the evening, I take a stroll outside. “Chickens!!! Chickens!!! Hellloooooooo chickens!!!” I coo, wandering over towards their compound to tell them about my trip. We have lots to talk about, and I would like them to give me some advice on judging my competition, which was a roaring success with literally entries.

All is quiet. This is odd. Normally the lightest footfall on the gravel path results in a blur of chickendom, tumbling over each other to be first in the queue for elevenses. I reach the door and there is no sound.

“Chickens…?”

No blur, no frantic pecking, not even a friendly cluck. The chickens are mooching around on Short Tony’s side of the enclosure, utterly disinterested in my presence. One raises a blase chicken eyebrow at me before resuming nosing around in dirt.

My chickens have forgotten me. I stand helplessly in the doorway, at a stroke having become one of the great tragic figures of poultry-rearing. And tragedy is the word. In fact, a man who is getting on a bit being coldly betrayed by his five chickens – it is uncannily close to the plot of King Lear.

I turn wordlessly away and fetch a small bite to eat for them. They cluck happily and remember me again. Chickens are shallow. It is a shame that King Lear did not have access to some cornflakes, as things would have turned out much better.

“Let me tell you about my travels,” I begin…