Crunch time in the eye of a storm...

Lights out at last, huddled together under the covers, me, myself, and my husband, the storm raging all around outside as if we were in its eye, a tranquil and surreal calm. Sleep begins its welcome descent...

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

Husband M, who's usually first to fall, rises eerily up, his silhouette barely visible in the thick dark: "What...?"

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

"That'll be the chicken neck", I say without getting up, a woman's knowing - plus I was the one who left it for her in her bowl in the laundry after our Sunday roast and it's not the first time...

"The bones are good for her teeth" I remind M, who is still looking around to locate the whereabouts of the cat (TT), who is of course the one crunching the chicken neck she has proudly hauled upstairs from the laundry at the other end of the house to devour it in the doorway of her den (our bedroom).

"It is free range" I mumble then, as the humour of the situation hits us. "Takeaways" says M, lying back down with a resigned harrumph.

I know how he feels...

"Barn reared, actually" he clarifies into his pillow (not strictly free-range), and I half laugh, leaving the last word for the day to the one who bought the chook - who ought to know - returning to the task of getting to sleep, my thoughts now torn between the insistence of the raging storm outside (see image) and the niggling ethics of chicken farming inside.

Crunch, crunch, crunch...