My brain is becoming the size of a chicken’s

All through the years my kids have looked at me as if I’ve just arrived from another planet. I never took much notice because I know all kids look at their parents like that. Pityingly. But as they get older, they stop. Mine haven’t. And I’m beginning to see why.

Sometimes I think I am on another planet. The other day I was lying out in my garden, listening to the radio, scantily clad. No longer a pretty sight. And I mean very scantily clad because nobody can really see me. Unless they are up a tree or hanging out of their top window, that is. And then I heard a wolf whistle and I ran like a lunatic indoors, valiantly endeavouring to cover my bits. And I went back out after a while and took up my prone position again, this time with more clothes on. And after a while I heard the whistle again and realised that there is a new ad on the radio that involves a wolf whistle. So now I can’t even detect the difference between the radio and someone leaning over my fence. And who the hell am I anyway to think that anybody would be wolf whistling at me?

And then I was in bed the other night catching up on Facebook and someone had shared a live stream of chickens hatching. I stayed awake until half-four in the morning, staring at 22 eggs and waiting for just one chicken to come out. They pecked and pecked and I watched mesmerised. For four hours. I watched every peck as they tried to make their way into the world.

Not one of them hatched and still I watched. My son, who lives abroad and is in a different time zone, texted me and I told him I couldn’t talk as I was watching chickens hatching. I did add that I might be losing it. He assured me that in his opinion this had happened some time ago.