A change of name

What is it about 6pm? It’s been four days now and each evening at 6pm, Chippy and Axy jump the gate. It’s like they’re flying home to roost – in the wrong direction. At no other time of day do they attempt the crossing from the run into the garden.

It’s not so stressful for me anymore: they don’t venture far on our side of the gate and they don’t attempt to fly anywhere else. They also don’t do much digging when they are out. But they do poo a lot.

I wonder if it has become a game for them. I’m sure Chippy waits until she knows we can see her. It’s become her party trick. Chirp still has never attempted to jump or fly and I can’t help feeling an extra soft spot for her.

‘I think it’s because she’s the biggest’, said Stuart one evening. ‘It’s probably too hard for her to jump up.’

‘Maybe she’s just well-behaved’ I answered looking Chippy in the eye while she stared out from behind the gate.

The boys were leaning over the fence making their own observations. ‘Look Ned,’ whispered Louis, ‘Axy likes digging a lot.’

It was true. The last few days had seen Axy digging a little hole for herself under the tree then sitting in it. Later she would get up, scratch the dirt back over the hole and make another somewhere else. Their little personalities were starting to emerge: Chippy the escapee (or cheeky Chippy), Axy the digger and Chirp the quiet, good girl.

The children discussed over dinner how ‘amazing’ it was that the hens’ personalities mimicked their own. Not that Louis did much digging and sitting in holes, but we all agreed that if Ned ever flew the coop, Louis would be right behind him.

Before bed, Louis had an announcement. ‘I don’t want to call my chicken Axy anymore. She likes digging so I think we’ll call her Diggy!’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Stuart sounding disappointed, possibly knowing how pleased I would be to no longer have a chicken called Axe-man.

He nodded, ‘I like Diggy much better. Good night.’

It wouldn’t be long before Diggy’s name changed again. And again. And again. I hope she has never realised. The last thing this house needs is a chook with an identity crisis.

The excitement from the night before

Stuart left for the airport at 5am. It was the chooks second morning here and my first morning of letting them out. I dosed until daybreak, dreaming about the chooks running up and down our street dodging cars. I woke with a start hearing strangulated clucks – oh god, the chooks! What’s wrong with the chooks?! It was a few seconds before I realised the strangulated clucks were instead a magpie screeching.

I forced myself up, fuming. Why do I do this to myself? It’s hard enough having three children! Why do I need to worry about three chooks as well? But as I walked into the kitchen I saw two little boys in their dressing gowns sitting on the window seat looking out the window. Their little heads were so still; there was no talking.

‘Good morning’ I said as I switched the kettle on.

‘Hi mum’, replied Ned not turning around.

‘What are you looking at?’ I asked.

‘We’re waiting for the chickens to get up’, Louis said.

That’s right, I had to go and open the coop. Lifting the roof, I saw the three of them perched and fast asleep. The sound they made was a cross between a purr and a hum. It was soft and content. I opened the doors of the coop and walked away.

The boys didn’t leave their post. The girls didn’t attempt to leave their perch. We all ate breakfast watching and waiting for the chooks to appear. Lily finally appeared rubbing her eyes. School lunches were packed. Uniforms were found. There was a lost sock search and still the chooks slept.

Stuart sent a text from Melbourne: ‘Has everyone woken up ok? How are the chooks this morning?’

It was 8.30am. ‘They must really be tired after their adventures last night’ said Ned shaking his head, packing his schoolbag.

‘Let’s give them some lettuce’, I suggested.

We could hear the quiet clucks – Clucky already at the door of the hutch wide awake. She came out for the lettuce and wandered around the run; the one chook who hadn’t attempted an escape. Axy soon followed her.

While awake, Chippy refused to budge off her perch. She still looked tired.

Poor Chippy. Four jumps over the gate was obviously more taxing than she expected. But would that be enough to keep her wings by her side for evermore?!

Cheeky chickens

Ned came running up to me as he left the classroom after the bell went. With his huge smile and arms outstretched I felt touched that he was so pleased to see me on a Monday afternoon.

‘Yay! I’ve been waiting all day to get home and see the chickens!’

Ok, so not so much about me...

‘Oh yeah,’ said Lily absent-mindedly, ‘I forgot all about the chickens.’

As we walked home, Louis and I told them about the chooks’ day. A bit of scratching, a lot of eating was all that seemed to happen.

The kids gave them some vege scraps and we all got on with the afternoon. When Stuart came home, we stood in the garden watching the ‘girls’ thinking how easy it all was.

Too easy.

I went to pilates at 6pm and once home I noticed the side gate had chicken wire all over it. Strange. I was pretty sure it wasn’t there before I left.

I walked into the kitchen to find Stuart making dinner. ‘Why is there chicken wire on the side gate?’

He stopped stirring, looked at me and smiled. ‘It seems our chooks aren’t as docile as you thought. Chippy is quite the escape artist actually and Axy enjoys copying him.’

Hang on, which one was Chippy again?

‘Four times he jumped over the fence’, Stuart continued, with slightly too much glee I felt. ‘Don’t worry they didn’t go far and then tried to get back into the run through the wire.’

‘We might have to get their wings clipped,’ I said over dinner, still surprised that they had flown the coop. The breeder said he’d only ever had to clip one chook’s wings it was so unusual.

Stuart nodded. ‘Yeah, I was thinking I’d have to do that.’

Hang on. Surely not...

‘It’s not that hard. I’m sure I could find out how on the internet.’

Oh no. This could be a disaster. As much as he is amazing at many things, fixing things is not one of them. In this house, shelves have fallen down, as have pictures off walls. While putting together the flat-pack chicken coop, he split the wood and broke the roof.

‘I think we should go back to the breeder for that...’

‘Don’t you think I can do it?’ he looked surprised.

‘Maybe it was a one-off’ I said, ‘Let’s not worry about clipping any wings unless they try escaping again’.

I looked out into the quiet, dark garden hoping those chooks could sense what’s good for them.

Who knew choosing a chook would be so hard?

It was a Sunday afternoon when we found ourselves driving out through the suburbs of Sydney to collect our chooks. A beautiful Spring day, we stopped off to have brunch with friends on the way.

‘What great weather’, we commented to each other while eating bacon and egg rolls in their garden.

‘It sure is great weather for collecting chooks’, said Ned with a big smile.

Yes, I thought, this is the right time for us to be doing this. The kids were going to love it.

Although, Stuart may have been the most excited. For a week he’d been researching breeds on the internet.

‘Wow, look at this’, he had said with alarming regularity. ‘The Black Mottled Ancona, how beautiful is this bird!’

I looked over his shoulder, first noting “nervous and restless in confinement”.

‘Well what about the Belgian D’Uccle?’

‘Ummm. You want a “broody and fidgety” chicken?’ I replied feeling more nervous.

‘Well, come on. Let’s not just get a boring chicken. I want something interesting and attractive. Let’s do it properly!’ was the reply.

Followed a few minutes later with...

‘Yes, I’ve found it! We HAVE to get this breed that lays blue eggs. Look at how beautiful it is and the kids will love blue eggs!’

I felt bad dampening his enthusiasm but seriously the last thing we needed was a chook who was “nervous and flighty and prone to the sniffles”.

An awful thought crossed my mind. ‘You do realise we are not going to become people who show chickens competitively?’

‘Mmm. I suppose not.’ He looked disappointed.

But now here we were, safe in the knowledge that the chicken breeder had already told Stuart on the phone the breeds that would best suit our 3 children family in the middle of the city. After arriving I casually reiterated that we were really after docile, friendly chooks that wouldn’t get broody and would lay eggs regularly.

Then Stuart spotted a white chicken with what looked like a huge pom pom on top of its head.

‘How cool is that one!’ he pointed excitedly.

The breeder smiled and shook his head. ‘You’d need a roof on your run. Those ones love to fly’. ‘Let me show you what you really want.’

With our three chooks calmly sitting in their shredded paper-lined box ready for the drive home, Stuart asked the kids to name them.

‘I want the black one to be called Chippy!’ said Ned.

‘And I chose the brown spotty one so that’s mine and I’m calling her Clucky!’ said Lily.

Louis looked for a while at the little red chicken, as yet un-named. ‘I think Axy’, he said.

‘Axy?’ the chicken breeder and I both said.

‘Axy as in Axe-man’ Louis laughed.

I think the irony was lost on him.

‘You can’t call a chicken that!’ I said sounding too much like my mother. ‘What about Henny Penny?’

‘Let him call it what he likes’, replied Stuart perhaps still smarting from not getting the exotic, neurotic breeds he really wanted.

I tried again on the drive home. ‘Kids, are you sure you don’t want to think of some more interesting names?’

‘What’s wrong with their names?’ asked Stuart. I realised that as he had named his first pet Budgie the Budgerigar this wouldn’t be a conversation worth continuing.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that it was more important that we had three docile non-flighty birds... Or so I thought.

Back to Nature

It’s been a while since I’ve been here – both figuratively and literally. This year has been a bit of a slog... nothing catastrophic but a feeling of teetering on the edge of catastrophe a few too many times.

I’ve learnt a little more about myself throughout these months. For one, the joy of gardening and watching plants grow and thrive. Something I never thought I would find relaxing or restorative. Watering the garden, tending to the plants started to feel almost meditative – a mental break and a moment to be fully present.

It was during one such morning I heard them. Quietly at first, so quiet I wasn’t sure if I’d heard anything at all. But there it was again. An unmistakeable ‘cluck cluck’ followed by a cooing sound. Chickens! There were chickens over the fence.

It wasn’t long before the whole family was asking for our own chickens. In theory I loved the idea – that irresistible cluck, the fresh eggs, a pet that wouldn’t need walking – but in reality I fought against it. Our postage stamp garden was too small. I didn’t want the roses dug up or the grass seed just sprouting to be uprooted. I didn’t want an ugly chicken wire fence making our small outdoor space even smaller.

‘We will have chooks one day,’ I kept saying, ‘when we have a bigger house and garden.’

And then the children’s birthdays all came, one month after another. And with it the realisation that they are growing up. Lily just turned nine and as Stuart so helpfully reminded me, in another nine years she will be 18. Hang on, where did the first nine years go? When did our third baby, the one who still felt a bit of a novelty, turn four? This year I have spent time visiting friends with three kids under five and found myself realising how long ago those days felt for me. In fact I can hardly remember the house full of toddlers and tantrums. Life has moved on and I haven’t noticed.

So, on the two mornings a week all the children were out of the house I found myself looking forward to my cup of tea on the deck listening to the clucks from behind the fence. Maybe we could fit chooks here, I started thinking. After all, this garden would have had a cow in it 130 years ago.

How long would it be before the kids weren’t interested in pets, chickens, home, us anyway? We can’t keep waiting for ‘one day’. Time doesn’t allow it – it’s already here. And now so are our three girls: Chippy, Clucky and Diggy. One red, one brown with white spots and one black with red spots.

I have a feeling this blog may now become a space to write about them. Interestingly, it’s only since they arrived last weekend that I have felt like writing again.

Not that they do much, but they do seem to do something to all of us. While watching them scratching around on their first morning, Stuart said over his cup of tea, ‘It’s like watching the waves.’

Yes, it really is.

Loss and Life

This year seems to have started with many friends around me suffering the loss of someone close. A constant reminder of the fragility of life and a sense of fear about how any of us will make it through to old age. Chances seem slim when you hear so many different stories.

Since my father died, I have always found the new year particularly poignant. Another year that he will never know. Another year that pushes him further away from our lives. My greatest fear when he died was that my children would have no memory or understanding of him. His death prompted me to start writing; for the children and for me.

Last week Lily told my mother she had no memory of him whatsoever. Even when she looked at the photos of him holding her as a baby, she couldn’t sense him at all. Yet, when he died and she was not quite two, she talked about him all the time. So much so that her chatter prompted me to write the story below.

A story that not only helped me cope with my loss but more importantly a story I need to read to her again.


(first published in the Sydney Morning Herald, February 22, 2007)

A Shift in Perception

Lily loved her Pa. He was always reading to her. Everytime Pa came to visit, Lily would rush to her bookshelf and find a collection of books to read together. Afterwards they would pull funny faces and make each other laugh. Pa always made Lily laugh and Lily always made Pa laugh. He was always smiling.

Then Pa started to visit a bit less. When he did, he looked tired and was sometimes too tired to read to Lily. Luckily Mama was always with him, so she would read to Lily while Pa watched, still smiling.

Soon Pa stopped visiting at all and Lily’s mummy would take her to visit him. ‘We’re going to have morning tea with Pa today’, she would say and Lily would rush to her bookshelf to find different books to show him. Mostly Pa would be in a chair by the bed, looking out the window. Sometimes he would be asleep. Each time he looked very sad but as soon as he saw Lily, his eyes would light-up and he would give her the widest grins. Lily would run up to him laughing, kiss his cheek and rummage through her bag for her books. Pa couldn’t read to her anymore, so Lily’s mummy would instead. Lily didn’t mind — whenever she looked at Pa while mummy was reading, he was watching, still smiling.

Sometimes he slept while Lily’s mummy read, but he always woke up to kiss Lily goodbye. As Lily walked out of his room, she would turn back to wave and Pa was always watching, still smiling.

One day, they didn’t go to visit Pa and everyone in Lily’s family — her mummy, daddy, mama, auntie and uncle — looked very sad. Lily wasn’t sure why as she could see Pa in the loungeroom with them all. Watching, still smiling.

Lily missed sitting on Pa’s lap and having him read to her. She would often look at her books by herself, only she was never really by herself as she would look up and always see Pa watching her, still smiling.

Sometimes she would try and read her books aloud to him but she couldn’t remember all the words, as hard as she tried. Pa never seemed to mind though as he was still watching, still smiling.

Lily’s mummy was often sad and told Lily it was because she missed Pa. Lily wanted to make her feel better so would go to her bookshelf and find her favourite books. As Lily’s mummy read to her, Lily saw she had tears in her eyes. Lily couldn’t understand why as Pa was there too. Watching, still smiling.

That night Lily had a dream about Pa. Lily was so excited. She could cuddle him and sit on his lap. Best of all, he could read to her again — all the books in her bookshelf! They laughed and laughed together. He wasn’t tired anymore and he was so happy. Lily kept looking up at him as he read. Of course he was watching, still smiling.

After he finished the last book, he folded Lily in his arms and told her he had to go. He asked her not to be sad because it was good. He was all better now. But Lily didn’t want him to go. She wanted to stay on his lap and have him read to her forever. He hugged her and said that every time she read a book to think of him; he would be there, between every word and page. He would point at the pictures and laugh with her at the funny bits, just like always. Then Pa told her it was time to go back to sleep. She nestled her head in the crook of his arm and closed her eyes while he watched, still smiling.

In the morning, Lily raced to her bookshelf to find her favourite book and sat down to start reading. Straight away she felt Pa next to her but when she looked up he wasn’t there. She kept reading though, always thinking about him. And Pa continued to watch, always smiling.

Back to work but still time for a holiday read

I’ve mentioned earlier my love of Penny Vincenzi novels so you can imagine my excitement when, just before Christmas, I noticed she had a new book out. My idea of escapist reading has always been a 700-odd page saga with a cast of more than 20 characters that explores the huge, messy themes of life. My perfect holiday read.

To be honest, it’s my perfect-any-time-of-year read as her stories are so readable. Page-turning. As she said in a recent Sydney Morning Herald interview, “I write to entertain my readers and hopefully make their lives just a little better, not to win prizes. What I like best is when I get notes from readers who tell me they've had a long spell in hospital and my book has helped them get through it; that makes me very happy.''

I laughed. In the last few years, I have only been able to convert a few friends to becoming Vincenzi fans during enforced rest time: late-stages of pregnancy, or looking for something ‘easy’ to read during all the hours spent breast-feeding and most recently, a friend who spent a spell in hospital.

While pregnant with Ned, I had the opportunity to interview Penny for Good Reading magazine and leapt at it. Despite her success – 16 bestsellers and seven million books sold to date – she is extremely modest, spending much of our interview time asking me questions about my pregnancy and telling me stories about her own four children and grandchildren.

But, about her career and her writing, here is what she had to say...

First published in Good Reading magazine October 2005

Penny For Her Thoughts

Watching Penny Vincenzi pour our tea from across the table, I am struck by how unaffected she is. Despite having sold over five million books worldwide, she is more interested in my pregnancy and chatting about her husband and four daughters, than promoting her latest novel, Sheer Abandon. Settling back into our armchairs, the pregnancy conversation segues towards the idea for her latest novel.

Sheer Abandon follows the lives of three women who meet aged 18 on their way to Thailand. Nine months later, one of them returns to London, giving birth at Heathrow Airport and abandoning the baby. The book moves forward 16 years, when the women are reunited and the now-teenager begins the search for her natural mother.

“The original idea came from a story in the paper. I thought it was an irresistible idea for a book but there needed to be more. Then I thought of the three girls, not knowing who the mother was and the story slowly unravelling. I also realised that the emotional fallout of everyone finding out years later would be as hard to cope with as the discovery.”

As with all Penny’s books, she doesn’t know how her stories will end: “I start with the idea, marshal a few of my characters…it’s a bit like going to a party and thinking ‘He looks interesting’, ‘she looks smart’ and I gradually get to know them. Then I wind them up, off they go and I follow them. They very much shape the plot as they take on a will of their own.”

Indeed, she is often as shocked as the reader with plot twists: “I remember with one book, after writing all day I went for an evening walk with my husband. I was telling him about the terrible day I’d had with one of the characters and then I realised, oh my God, she’s died! And it really was a shock. The minute I said it, I knew it had to happen for the story to work.”

Any fan of Vincenzi’s work will know that all her books are at least 500 pages — and you still don’t want them to end — packed with extraordinary detail of the characters, their careers, and the era and society they live in. Unsurprisingly, research is one of the things Penny loves most about writing:

“I used to be a journalist and it was such a lovely, chatty job; whereas fiction is incredibly isolating. Doing research is like being a journalist again.” Politics plays a major role in Sheer Abandon; a world she knew little about: “I spent a lot of time at the House of Commons talking to MPs and political journalists, going to their restaurants and bars…soaking up the atmosphere. You have to get the tone of voice right, so I spent a lot of time listening and immersing myself in their world.”

With Penny’s natural flair for creating such readable escapist fiction, it is a shock to discover she never intended to write a book, or that even after writing the first one she would become a novelist:

“I was approached to write a novel and I had an idea so thought I’d do it and then go back to being a journalist. It was a complete surprise to me how much I loved it and how it has turned into something really wonderful. I’m amazed that I have all these plots and sub-plots in my head!”

After writing a book nearly every year, and Sheer Abandon being her 12th novel, it does seem the ideas have never stopped flowing: “I’m very workman like about what I do. While I have days when I can’t write, I just sit there and sweat it out. I think it’s a bit of a luxury to get writer’s block. I’ve always got a deadline, so have to keep going.”

Up at 6am every morning, Penny walks her dog and during this time does her plotting. She is at her desk and writing by 9am. “I work office hours really but as a deadline gets nearer, I’ll do six days a week, then sometimes seven.”

She is also very aware of balancing her life: “I have a family and it’s not fair to them so I do stop work in the evenings and cook my husband supper. I’m a good 50s housewife: I cook, shop and keep house for him because that’s how I was brought up and I can’t change it! My children and grandchildren take up a lot of time too…they’re the only ones I will stop work for.”

As we sit with our second cup of tea, analysing her characters as if they were real friends, it is evident that Penny is a long way from running out of fresh ideas. “I love finding these people, seeing their foibles and strengths. It’s my favourite part and it’s a hideous blank when you finish.”

As it is for her readers.