The joy of having lightly scrambled eggs that have the colour resembling the bright orange sun that sets at the bottom of our garden is so great compared to the pale insipid eggs you get from the supermarket. Even though they claim to be organic free range they never seem to taste as good as my girls’ eggs.

Let me introduce you to my Girls. Posh (the greedy one), Pecks (R.I.P), Jazz (the fluffy one), Fajita (the bully) and Pigeon (the dopey one). They must be enjoying the lovely spring weather as – Hallelujah! – they are starting to lay eggs again.

But they don’t make it easy for me! Their favourite game to play is the egg hunt. They love finding their special place for laying unfortunately for me they don’t always agree to use the same place. So individually they find their little spot and that could be absolutely anywhere from flower pots, behind statues, in hedgerow and even under our log store. The neighbours must think I’m clucking mad crawling round on my knees with my head poking through their hedgerow cussing and cursing. And once I find their new hiding place, they’re already plotting where to lay next!

They have a lovely house – it was my daughter’s old wendy house, hand built some 20 years ago so, it’s done rather well. Anyway I made them boxes inside the house lined comfortably layered with sawdust, straw and newspaper for laying but it seems these girls like a bit of rough.

I must say it’s rather therapeutic watching them pecking away round the garden while we eat our meals on the patio. The girls will often sit at our feet waiting for a few tit bits – talk about ladies who lunch! And as far as the beauty routine goes, regular dust baths are a must and don’t get me started on the sunbathing now it’s getting warmer.

They may be very mischievous but the holey primulas, dislodged shingle and the odd accidental dip in the pond, my garden wouldn’t be the same without them.