It’s that time of year again, when hundreds of teenagers leave home to go to university, leaving many parents suffering from the empty nest syndrome. Well the same thing happens with hens.

     At our home for waifs and strays, it’s the mother hen that turfs out her chicks when she feels confident they can stand on their own two feet.

      ‘It’s time to leave home,’ she says, ‘I cannot take care of you forever.’

And she gets on with her own life, leaving the young ones bewildered and crying after her. But she does not give in. She sticks by her belief that her young can fend for themselves. And indeed they can.

      Just recently, I witnessed this for myself. Twilight, our youngest mother hen adopted two young chicks and raised them as her own. She did a wonderful job of teaching them how and what to eat and how and when to go to bed. She taught them how to scratch for worms and how to dust bath.  But then the dreaded day came.

       I was there when it happened and felt close to tears as it all unfolded. Twilight bolted through the gate with all the ‘big girls’ leaving her chicks behind in the junior pen. She was free! She had cut the cord that tied her to the chicks. There was no looking back and if she did, I wonder what she would have done.

      They stood watching her, crying and pacing up and down. I stayed with them, but it wasn’t me they wanted.

       That was a week ago now and at last, they are all happy. The chicks survived the cutting of the apron strings and their mother has got on with her life. Why can’t letting children go be just as easy?

Last evening, as the wind howled around us and rabbits scurried through the fields, the sight of the moon through the trees almost blew us away. Eerie? I always find the moon mysterious. But this moon was special. She was bright and full, 14% bigger than any other full moon this year and 30% brighter. It was no wonder our chances of seeing the full display of the Perseid meteor shower was limited.

     So what is the Perseid? It’s a trail of dust left behind comet Swift-Turtle every 133 years as it swings through the inner solar system. Then, as the Earth moves through it, the cloud of dust particles hit the atmosphere at 140,000mph and burn up in streaking flashes of light, creating the incredible spectacle we call the Perseids.  

     And again this evening, whilst staying with family in the dark of the countryside, we sit patiently, watching and hoping for a glimpse of the Perseids. The moon is there, closer to the Earth than normal but obscured by clouds. I think we could be in for a long evening.

‘Someone’s been eating my cabbages,’ said Grumpy Stanley Snail. And he wondered around the garden, looking for the culprit.

     ‘I’m coming to get you,’ he shouted as loud as he could. ‘You had better run!’

      ‘Where are you going?’ asked the spider.

      ‘Someone’s been eating my cabbages,’ said Grumpy Stanley. ‘So I’m going to look for him.’

      ‘I’m good at frightening people,’ said the spider, ‘I will come and frighten them away.’

      So the spider and the snail crept slowly around the garden searching for anyone that looked suspicious.

       ‘Have you been eating my cabbages?’ said the snail to Slip the slug. The slug shook his head. He didn’t like cabbages, they were far too green.

       ‘I can help you find the culprit,’ said Slip the slug and slid behind the trail.

       ‘Have you been eating my cabbages?’ said Grumpy Stanley to the woodlouse.

        ‘Indeed I haven’t!’ said the equally grumpy woodlouse. ‘Is there a reward for finding the culprit?’

        Grumpy Stanley looked at the woodlouse and shook his head. ‘What is the world coming to?’ he said.

         ‘Well I haven’t got anything better to do so I might as well join you,’ said the woodlouse and joined the trial.

         ‘Where are you going?’ said the beautiful white butterfly?

         Grumpy Stanley, Slip the Slug, the woodlouse and the spider looked up at the butterfly perched on a flower. Grumpy Stanley smiled. This was very strange as he never, ever smiled.

          ‘We are looking for the culprit who is eating the cabbages,’ said Slip the slug.

           The butterfly looked at the snail and blushed.

            ‘You should all be eating the cabbages,’ she said, ‘they are good for you.’

           ‘So you’re the culprit!’ said Grumpy Stanley and the butterfly nodded her head.

            ‘Yes,’ she replied honestly. ‘That is where I get my name from,’ she said proudly, ‘by eating cabbages.’

            ‘But they’re my cabbages,’ said Grumpy Stanley. ‘That’s stealing!’

            ‘Shall I frighten her?’ said the spider. Grumpy Stanley shook his head.

             ‘No it’s not stealing,’ said the butterfly crossly, ‘they belong to everyone.’

            ‘Count me out,’ said the Woodlouse, ‘I hate cabbages and anything green.’

             ‘You should eat all your greens. They are good for you,’ said the butterfly.

            ‘But if everyone ate the greens there would be no cabbages left,’ said Grumpy Stanley.

             ‘There’s plenty to go around,’ the butterfly said. ‘We shouldn’t be greedy.’

             ‘If I ate my greens do you think I could fly like you?’ said Slip the slug.

             ‘They will make you big and strong but I don’t think they will make you fly,’ replied the butterfly. ‘But you never know!’ she added.

             Grumpy Stanley huffed and puffed and woodlouse moaned but in the end they all agreed to try.

           Grumpy Stanley would share his cabbages but first he would make a rota. ‘You can only eat the cabbages when it’s your turn,’ he said grumpily. And they all agreed.

            The Woodlouse never flew and Slip the slug did grow stronger, and somehow, the more cabbage Grumpy Stanley seemed to eat, the happier he became. Secretly, I think it had something to do with the butterfly.

Everywhere you look there are fairies, but not everyone can see them. I can! I’ve always known they were there and I remember the first time I met one.

     It was many years ago, when I was six or seven. I had moved to live with my grandmother, who lived in a little wooden house next to the woods. My whole life seemed to change that day, especially the way I began to see the world and my father.

     My new garden rolled into endless fields, woods and beaches. Apart from the old farm at the bottom of the lane, there were no other houses near us.

     It all began when I was wondering around the garden minding my own business. I had been crying, though I can’t tell you why because I don’t remember. It was probably because I was very sad.  Anyway, my eyes were blurred from tears. I walked through an enormous greenhouse, with hundreds of bunches of grapes hanging from the roof. I stood on a chair to reach one and as soon as I did, I fell off. Then just as I raised my head up off the ground, I saw them.

     Although my knees hurt, I kept perfectly still and watched in amazement as hundreds of tiny, white fluffy balls with tails fly past the greenhouse towards the woods. I jumped up (forgetting about my sore knees) and followed them. The sadness had vanished and so had the tears.

      I ran down the lane, passed the old farmhouse and into the woods trying hard to keep up with them. They just had to be fairies, I thought, just like the ones in the story my mother once read to me. Then they vanished. I searched and searched but couldn’t find them.

      ‘Where are you?’ I called softly. But there was no reply, so I turned to go back home.

      That was when I saw my first, real, close up fairy. She had landed on a fern. Ever so slowly, I crept towards her, hardly daring to breathe.

       ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I whispered, standing over her. She moved slightly. It was a fairy for certain. Oh, she wasn’t like I had imagined, but a fairy nevertheless. She was pure white and perfectly round and I stared, with saucer eyes, as she tiptoed over a leaf, dragging her tail behind her.

       Just as she turned to look at me, I heard my father’s voice. Oh why did he have to follow me?

       ‘Thank heavens I found you!’ he picked me up and over his shoulder I could still see the little fairy.

       ‘I’m so sorry daddy, but I was chasing fairies.’

       My father put me down and looked to where I was pointing. She’s there on the leaf.

       ‘I can see her,’ said my father. ‘She is indeed a fairy from the dent de lion flowers.’

       I looked at my father as if I had never seen him before. 'You believe in fairies too?' My father nodded.

      ‘So she does have a home!’ I said.

      ‘Not anymore,’ said my father. ‘You see, she has left her home, the dent de lion, which is French for the lions tooth, a dandelion to most people, and now she’s looking for a new one.’

       ‘But where will she go?’ I was so afraid for the fairy.

       ‘Oh, somewhere where she will be free and happy,' my father replied.

        I turned to see my very first fairy, flying to her new home.’ Just like me I thought. If someone so small could live happily in her new home, then so could I.

‘Don’t eat me,’ said the ladybird, ‘I taste awful!’

     ‘I don’t believe you,’ said the big bad bird. ‘I’m going to get you!’ And the hungry bird hopped closer and closer to the tiny, red and black ladybird.

     ‘But why would you want to eat me?’ said the ladybird, scurrying up a stem of a very tall flower. ‘I’m a sort of a bird too. I have wings, just like you and I can fly!’

     The big bad bird stopped for a moment and frowned. ‘But you’re a beetle not a bird!’ he said, ‘and birds eat beetles.’

      The little ladybird had to think fast or the bird would eat her. She didn’t want him to follow her home as her babies were sleeping in their beds. She thought about her babies and smiled. Someone once told her that they looked like baby alligators, with their long bodies and bumpy skin and legs that protrude from their bodies. That was a cheeky thing to say, she thought, calling her babies names.

        ‘I’m coming!’ shouted the angry bird!’ and he sat at the end of the stem, waiting to eat her.

        The ladybird’s heart beat so fast, she thought it would burst. Then she had an idea.

         As the bird opened his beak to eat her, he had a terrible shock. The ladybird released a horrid, smelly liquid from her legs that sent the big bad bird flying. He was also sick.

        ‘That will teach you to mess with me,’ said the ladybird. ‘I told you I taste awful. I can smell awful too!’ Then she flew back to her home and her babies.