Free Hens Dancing by Raffaella Barker

party, and is entirely in charge of it. We take the babies out to frolic in the garden and are mobbed by hens and chicks. The Beauty bats her eyelashes at them and pats the grass invitingly, hoping one will come and nestle next to her, while Theo ignores them utterly in his pursuit of a punctured football he has found. Rose has resuscitated her garden in London after eighteen months of its being a building site. Idle garden chat and glancing at my borders with dissatisfaction leads to the inevitable. Suddenly we are whizzing across Norfolk on our way to a rare-plants nursery, our car filled with music from the motion picture
Reservoir Dogs
to keep the babies quiet.
    The outing is a big mistake. Rose and I are thwarted in our attempts to bankrupt ourselves by the pig-headedness of The Beauty and Theo. Both behave as if the rare-plants nursery is a nuclear testing ground, and will not be put down for a second, but clutch at us andassume terrified expressions if either of us tries to extract ourselves from their grip. Even when placed in a charming metal trolley together and wheeled round the walled garden, they sob unrestrainedly, reminding me of small eighteenth-century French aristocrats in a tumbril. The nursery owners are very kind, even when Theo pulls a peony flower the size of a hat off a plant and tears it to bits in front of them. Its crimson petals drip in gory echo of his cochineal experience.
    â€˜Do you think he’ll make horror films when he grows up?’ wonders Rose as we depart, the car pretty well laden under the circumstances. In fact, the inclusion of Theo’s semi-double peony Arabian Prince, even without one of its flowers, gives our booty a much-needed glamour boost.
    June 21st
    The summer solstice is upon us with all its attendant pressures: why am I not staying up all night being at one with nature? Why have I yet again failed to take the children to an open-air production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
How can the days, and indeed the year, be diminishing again? How soon can I get to Norwich to buy fake tan for lovely summer-look limbs?
    Such is the litany of soul-searching questions I am occupied with as I stroll into the village to attend the Village Show committee meeting. At home, Rose and Lila are creating a solstice feast. Rose, with her usual flamboyance, has provided whole lobsters, tiger prawns and pink champagne. Lila, ever the reformer, has soya milk, organic tofu and some sesame paste. As I depart to the meeting she is attempting to spread her weird pastes onto tiny crisps of fat-free wafer, and Rose is rolling her eyes. She mutters to me under her breath, ‘There’s more sustenance in bloody Communion bread than in that cardboard of Lila’s.’
    We have invited Simon and Vivienne to our feast, and also David, whom Rose bumped into on the village green this afternoon. Dazzled by the glamour of him in cricket whites and by being able to say hello to one of the team, once he was pointed out to her by Felix, she has become obsessed with him.
    â€˜He’s so good-looking. Why aren’t you having an affair with him?’ she demands, ignoring Felix and Giles lying in the kitchen armchair, reading the
Beano
with their ears flapping.
    The committee meeting is a shambles. Nothing is arranged, even though the show is in about six weeks. My only contribution, apart from agreeing to judge the Pet Most Like Its Owner class, is a suggestion that we have a teddy-bear parachute contest from the church tower. Tomy amazement, the committee is keen as mustard, and I am sent home to make posters forthwith.
    As I approach the house it becomes clear that the feast is in full swing. Out on the grass, framed by a bank of thistles (sadly not the fashionable sort), is a bivouac with three tents, a high table and fairy lights twinkling from the trees. Simon, having provided a hog to roast, has built a spit, and clad in shorts and long thick socks like a game park warden, is busy