MY granddaughter Sophie has just given her mum a very nasty turn. Sat relaxing with her friend Nic in the kitchen, the sound of regular thuds from above did not initially alert Jo to any mischief or mayhem upstairs.

Not until a bright pink child slid, literally, down the stairs to joyfully greet them, did it cross their minds that their play may not have been as sweetly uneventful as they had assumed.

A possibly naive view to take with two four year olds who had gained access to a dressing table top of make up and creams.

It turns out that the combination of a roll of bubble wrap and a tub of pink Vaseline are an irresistible combination.

Sophie, who now closely resembled a plump flamingo, was matched by her little friend Boo’s slapped cheek/rapidly developing scarlet fever syndrome.

The carpet too had been artistically smeared in pink blotches and needed a fairly hard core cleaning approach to restore it to the previous beige shade.

On the subject of bubble wraps I was tickled to see a piece about a flock of chickens in America.

The owners of the chickens felt they needed to protect their hens from a particularly vicious cold winter. Instead of utilising the insulating properties of bubble wrap, they chose instead to knit little jackets for their hens.

Cunningly designed, to pull over the hen’s wings and yet still leave the vital egg production end free of any woolly obstruction, the crafty ladies, had knitted these little jackets in an assortment of colours and knitting wools.

To be true, the hens seemed quite unconcerned about their new status as fashion icons of the internet and, it was claimed, have boosted their egg production as a result of this extra layer against the cold.

Our hens need no such jackets to increase their egg manufacturing capacity. I am overhead with eggs. Today my twenty hens have laid nineteen eggs.

The culprit who is not laying is a rogue hen. Free thinking. Independently minded. Does not follow the rest of the flock into super production but has instead decided to sit one of the clutches and hatch out a few chicks.

I did not realise what she was up to until I climbed up a set of step ladders to try and find out what all the clucking and cackling was about on the roof of our old coal shed.

This shed is covered in ivy and other climbers. Their intertwined branches are probably the only thing keeping the pantiles on and it is on John’s “to do” list to strip tiles and ivy off and then re-roof the shed.

But meanwhile this wily old hen has realised that some hens had decided to reject my lovely comfy nest boxes in their hen house and instead lay “al fresco” on the shed roof gutter.

Mrs Cuckoo (the hen) thought she had found the ideal isolated spot to hatch out some chicks. Sorry old girl. Back to the hen house with you.