But all things come to an end, and at last the famine broke. After thirteen months and one and a half weeks - we didn’t count the hours - we woke up one morning to a really horrible noise, almost as though World War Three had broken out. The hens were squawking, the cockerel was crowing and there were feathers flying everywhere. Sandra burst out of bed and ran across the garden without bothering to put anything over her nightie, really short with a fair bit of lace around the hem. Very nice too, except that I was a bit slow and never got more than a quick flash of her legs, which didn’t matter as she was normally very generous in that area.
I caught up with her by the henhouse, and saw by the look on her face that she was happier than usual. You’ve guessed it, we had an egg. Only the one, mind, but an egg just the same. Our first, and as precious to us as though it had been our own baby.
Sandra put it in the fridge and said she would make us an omelette each when we got a few more. Well, there were no more that day, and there were no more the day after. In fact, there were no more at all. We only ever got the one egg, and considering what it cost us in the way of materials, tools, the birds themselves and the food we gave them, the one egg we got certainly reached a price of well over two hundred pounds. We couldn’t bring ourselves to eat it at first, and when we did, it turned out to be rotten and stunk the house out for days.
Oh yes, a fox got in amongst the hens shortly afterwards and took the lot. Still, as I said to Sandra, there’s one consolation. We’ll not die of cholesterol poisoning. Considering how careful she is about our health, I thought she might have taken the comment with a bit better grace.
WENDY
Her name was