Why, exactly, does the chicken cross the road?

And why don’t they all wear high-visibility vests, Rab wonders, as he struggles to adjust to a life without hens but which does contain a mercenary moggie as greedy as the mouth of Hell

Iwas intrigued to read about a bed and breakfast establishment in Blairgowrie which put its chickens in high-visibility jackets to protect them when they crossed the road.

This seems a sensible measure. I have argued before, from scientific observation, that chickens are not very bright, which is hardly surprising as they have very small heads.

A small head generally indicates a small brain, so there is no point in looking for reasoning from the chickens as to why they cross the road. Best answer they could come up with, I guess, might be: because it is there.

Humans generally cross the road to buy a pie or avoid someone who might frighten them by saying hello, but chickens just do it because it is something to do. But, of course, being too dim to understand the Green Cross Code, they run the risk of being run over.

I continue to miss the hens I looked after for friends recently. They were not stimulating company, true, and I know that they loved not me but the vittles that I brought.

But, still, they were living creatures that were a part of my life. My friends sent me pictures of them last week and I was able to pore over these for seven or eight contented hours.

I also requested a picture of the lawn tractor, upon whose noble seat I experienced some of the happiest moments in what I will confess has been a pretty sheltered life.

Driving along in the open air was, to me, like being in a sports car but even better, as one bumped along on grass rather than being stuck on a fume-filled road behind a man in a cap doing 20mph in his daft wee hatchback.

Talking of daft – and, indeed, wee – I continue to look after the cats here at Swanky Towers, abode of my muchtravelled friends who send me back pictures of sunny climes as I wilt under Scotland’s grey skies.

One of the cats has problems with his thyroid, so I have to bung cream in his lug, which involves me donning rubber gloves and having an MMA bout with the moggie under advisement. Needless to say, I always come off worst (he has a great right hook).

And, of course, I don’t get any thanks for it, even though the cream has brought him back to his fighting weight and made him healthy again.

Cats are entirely mercenary beasts and as greedy as the mouth of Hell. They don’t even lay eggs. I know. I’ve looked. All they do is poop in the flower beds.

And, here, they cross the road to the railway embankment in the hope of catching and torturing small beasts enjoying hitherto their first summer that also turns out, alas, to be their last.

However, while I consider cats a deplorable species, I cannot help but like the individuals that swim into my ken, ken? Bertie, in particular, makes me laugh when he pokes his face into mine when I am trying to do push-ups, thereby forcing me to abandon the exercise, for which I am always grateful.

In the meantime, it’s time for me to cross the road for my lunchtime trip to the bakery. Where’s my highvisibility jacket?

No vest, no chance: chickens do not know the Green Cross Code.