AS she has got older, Small But Fierce of Ipswich has definitely got bolder.

This week I invited her to do her wifely duties with the hair trimmer and harvest some of the extraneous fluff at the back of my neck.

She set to with brio. “You’ve got an interesting hairline at the back,” she said as she stepped back to admire her work. “Even more interesting now.”

And with that she pottered off, giggling to herself. I was left craning my neck with several mirrors trying to see exactly what that remark meant, but I gave up in the end and have worn a scarf all week.

She cares not a jot, of course, and has been enjoying the moment.

But while all this bravura is well and good, she’d better remember that it is a certain person’s birthday soon and if she’s not careful Father Birthday won’t be paying a visit.

Aside from the hairline antics it has been a quiet week chez nous. The neighbour turned up the other day; had we seen two of her chickens, which had gone missing from her garden?

We looked at Jake, but if you put a couple of large hens in a skinny greyhound it’d show up pretty clearly. In fact it would look like two chickens wearing a greyhound suit, so he’s not to blame.

They’re not in the freezer either, just in case you were wondering.

The chicken issue - whether we join the bandwagon and get some hens of our own - is still a live one, so to speak.

I bought SBF a Haynes chicken manual for Christmas. Yes, the same firm who bought millions of car DIY mechanics the knowledge of how to re-grease the pinion springing on a 1973 Morris Marina have now turned their attention to the livestock world.

It’s a great little tome, full of useful tips, though if you have to grease a chicken it will be with lard for the oven, so that sort of information is still best covered by Delia Smith.

I have promised to construct a chicken house which, with my sense of proportion, will be big enough to house every chicken in Suffolk and some of their offspring.

Talking of offspring, the Ginger has just rung me to proudly tell me, at 3.30 on a dark winter’s afternoon, that he’s off for a bike ride.

What is it with teenagers? Had he hauled his carcass out of bed at a reasonable time he’d have had hours of daylight... but I must calm down. He is master of his own destiny now and it appears his destiny is to cycle, probably lost, around the dark lanes of the Norfolk countryside.

My destiny is to go to the barbers and give them some hairline-based amusement.