Living with Alice

Meet Alice. She is a fine beast, who is always sure to make her presence (and desires) known. She shares a very large pen with three cockerels and a hen. Fastidious, willful and petulant, Alice thinks nothing of breaking down a fence or a door to get her way. Dogs disperse at high speed when Alice lumbers towards the kitchen door for breakfast. Only the young and uninitiated take her on. A nip on the ear or an attempt at the snout ends up in ear piercing yelps as Alice lunges her head sideways swiping the juvenile with her tusks.

On waking, Alice demands to be released from her pen. Everything in the house stops and we fly to let her out before the pen is destroyed. Immediately out of the pen, the flood gates open as Alice embarks on her ablutions. (She will never allow any bodily functions to take place within her pen.) Refreshed, she lumbers up to the kitchen door and grunts for breakfast.

In the winter, Alice sleeps under her ladybird blanket in the sittingroom. In the less cold months she is happy with a duck and cockerel down duvet in her house.