Of the 'Motherlode' and three Bushes.

So...I have had a lazy week while Will has been working everyday at the cheese factory. I have pottered about doing odd jobs but spent quite a bit of time with Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones in the Dragon's Den.I have also spent a bit of time chasing the chickens away from the garden! They are now free to roam anywhere they please and yet they seem drawn to the house and garden. They have acres of bushland to forage for grubs. What is the matter with them? Chickens are stupid.Since they moved up there to the new shed the number of eggs we have collected has dropped considerably...in fact as of this morning we had collected less than a dozen. Will suspected that they were laying elsewhere in the garden but I have hunted and have found nothing.Will has been letting them out of their pen at 4.30 am on his way to work in the morning so they don't have to hang about until I get up but they have been coming down and crowing outside the house at 5.30 and 6.00 am. This morning I was chasing them back up the hill with a rake at 5.30am. I had to do it again at 6.00 and in the end gave up trying to get back to sleep and got up.I chased them away from the garden twice more before 10.00 and was beginning to think that I actually might one day be able to wring their necks!I had to go into town for 11.00 for my third appointment with the dietician so chased them all into their pen and locked them in so they couldn't ravage the garden while I was away. I counted them and discovered one was missing, Isis. I looked all over for her and couldn't see her even though she is white and was beginning to think she must be the first of our brood to fall victim to a fox when I spotted her lurking under a small bush. (No 1)I chased her out and there in a hollow was the 'Motherlode'...11 eggs all collected in a hollow. I collected the eggs and chased her into the pen and locked them in and headed to town.Stanthorpe pipes Christmas music all through the main street in the build up to Christmas through loud speakers mounted on the lamp posts. On my last visit some woman was singing about a "Christmas Bush" (No 2) and spookily as I drove through today there she was again wailing about her " Christmas Bush". I have never ever heard of this song, it is not very Christmassy anyway but neither is Christmas Down Under. Even more spookily the dietician is a Bush (No 3)....I mean her surname, not literally....so Moses can rest easy that his record of being the only person to talk to a bush still stands.It was only two weeks since I last saw her but I had been given three appointments and they had to be used up before the end of the year. I didn't have any eggs to take her....yes, I had found the 'Motherlode' but I was worried that in searching for Isis I was going to be late so didn't have time to box some up for her.I told her that I didn't think I had done so well since I last saw her. I told her of my lazy week but didn't mention Deborah Meaden or Peter Jones. I was very honest with her and she said that chasing the chickens wa at least some exercise...so I guess there was a silver lining to that little annoyance. I said I had had no red meat since I had last seen her which was true and I am eating less white bread and more wholegrain wraps, and nuts and use 'Flora Proactive' instead of butter but that even though we had bought some I had not eaten any fruit. She said I shouldn't feel guilty and that she thought I was doing well and would give Dr Hussein a glowing report of the changes I had made.I left, resisted the urge to buy a pie and came home to release the chickens from confinement....within 10 minutes they were clucking about the house. I grabbed the rake and thought of the exercise I was getting.