What a Day

Well I 've spent all day with the local tourism lot, both the tourist info girls and other hostelry owners. We started at 8.30 with a welcome followed by two hours of swapping brochures etc. with local tourist attractions. We then had to sit through a long presentation because Centre Parcs are opening just up the road in 2015 so will start work next year; unfortunately the French being THE FRENCH, they are unable to see the benefits of them coming to town. After lunch we where shipped off to a couple of local small attractions that should have lasted two hours but took over three; then we were supposed to go to our local Maison de Pays but it was six o'clock by then so I slunk out and came home to feed the menagerie.
It was getting a little dark so toady I have just taken a few photos of the chickens who you will probably get to know very well through the future pages of this blog, so today I will introduce them to you individually.

This is Blanche. She is The Boss, top of the pecking order and will sort out any of the others including chasing away the cats if they get too close; even the dogs are a little cautious of her.  

This is Dierdre, Blanche's sister and second in command, unfortunately she has been ill over the last few days  and I wonder if we might lose her but she seems to be recovering slowly.

This is our only remaining black chicken as the other was taken by a fox or something similar. She is called Naomi and is the only one that will not let me any where near her. She is a little lost without her sister but seems to be getting on with one of the brown ones who has befriended her - even though previously she used to peck her all the time. 

This is Gauri she is named after one of our favourite guests of last year who hopefully we will be seeing again soon;, she is a lovely little thing, full of beans and very friendly - just like her namesake.

This is the last of the bunch My-Ami named after Gauri's brother who also came to see me for a photography holiday and is now going to be working for Google taking pictures for their maps. She, like her sister, is very friendly but tends to lay her eggs all over the place so you have to hunt for them every morning.

Finally the fruits of their labours:- eggs! The very large white ones at the back are goose eggs from a friend; the two white ones at the front are our own ducks' eggs; all the small ones are from the chickens. They started practicing at the beginning of the year (the new laying season) - the dark brown ones in the middle are Naomi's, the brown one to the right is from Gauri and the light one on the left is from Blanche so you can see the colour of the egg almost matches the colour of the Chicken.