Clear instructions..

The thought of gong away and leaving anyone in charge of this mad house is something that fills me with dread, and the possibility of us having a family holiday ever again is pretty non existent. The issue comes is that we know these animals, we know their habits, routines and "little" quirks. Dropping a sane person into this chaos would be a disaster for everyone concerned.

This point was proven not so long ago, when we had friends staying, and I was asked to take one of them and the kids to Las Palmas (the big city) My husband was working, which left the dilemma of the ducks!! these have to be put away before it lets dark, which is very simple to do, they know exactly where they have to go, however, they have to be secured.

One of our friends was staying behind, which was perfect, he is an intelligent guy, knows one end of duck from the other, and could cope with encouraging the ducks to bed with the "magic rake" or so I thought...we went off on our journey, and as the time approached that the ducks needed to be in bed, I begun to worry, like a mother that leaves her kids with the unsuitable teenage babysitter for the first time.

I thought I would just send a short, friendly text to ask if everything was ok..."NO" was the reply, panic set in and frantic text messages went back and forth, it seemed that he could not get the ducks in the house. This I could not understand as they just go in, bit of encouraging, but never a fight. Time lapsed further and he text again, sounding distressed and wanted to know what he could do, as my ever helpful husband had filled his head with stories of killer cockroaches that come out at night to eat house guests!

Another text appeared with the statement of " You do have four ducks don't you?" at that point the penny dropped clunk...clunk....clunk! The poor guy was trying to get our feral duck into the duck house, which was simply never going to happen. I had completely forgot about Daphne who lived with the chickens in the orchard, and believed she was a chicken, so never had anything to do with the ducks. Daphne had managed to wander past just at the point of bedtime, which was bad luck for her.

This mistake had resulted in a strange man chasing her with a rake, round and round until they were both very confused. Once the confusion was settled, the other ducks were put to bed, and Daphne went back to being a chicken, peace was resumed. This is why I cannot leave this place for more than a few hours, as how was I supposed to know that people do not think about the feral duck in the orchard that thinks she is a chicken, and will never be enticed by the magic rake!!