Gone to roost

And a vine lot of trouble

It's interesting how many poultry derived idioms we have in the language, isn't it?  And now so few of us have hens, we've forgotten or don't realise where they came from:

• gone to roost,
• pecking order
• flown the coop
• hens' teeth (they don't have any)

We went out yesterday to old gliding and Oxford friends' 40th wedding anniversary.

 "You need tolerance, perseverance and wisdom"

 to keep a marriage that long said a friend who raised a toast. May my son and his fiancée, marrying on Oct 25th at Newark, have those gifts too.

When we came home, it was past dusk and the hens had flown the coop and gone to roost. I had had to hunt the garden in the dark, till I found two of the three in the vine. "Vine lot of trouble" remarked my husband! The third hen, Lady Grey, didn't turn up till this morning, and now all three are happily eating left over rice curry from a few days ago. Cluck, cluck, clllcckk! Happy hens.