I am looking after my next door neighbour's chickens at the moment. Brodie is 'helping'. They don't have names so my daughter has called them Hazel, Snow-white and Minnie Mouse. You can probably figure out which is which. They have an inner run and an outer run but getting them to go back into their inner run is a challenge. That was, until we discovered how much they loved spaghetti (cooked). At first we tried plopping a dollop into the run. They all loved the look of it and raced over to have a closer peek...through the chicken wire...they couldn't figure out that they had to go INTO the run to eat it! I guess this is where the phrase bird brain comes from. Once we realised we could coax them in with some worm-like strands of spaghetti, it was job done.

​I love painting birds, particularly seagulls and pigeons so getting to know these three girls has inspired me to have a go at painting hens. Just need to think of the right setting now - not sure if they will look quite right walking along Elie beach or waiting for a bus on Princes Street :-)

Here is the finished painting - the holiday makers have arrived! I have added some people, bikes, dogs and seagulls. Now it looks like a typical bustling summer's afternoon in Elie. The lady in the foreground on the left, putting a bunch of flowers into the basket of her bike, is my Mum-in Law who lives in the village. She got that lovely new bike for her 80th birthday!