This morning I awoke to complete silence - something I haven’t experienced in a long time. Usually, at our place, the "cock-a-doodle-doo" of our resident wild cockerel - known as The Colonel, Mr Chook Chook, or cheekily, KFC - reverberates from around 5:30am. But yesterday he dropped dead. Just like that! I don’t know what the average lifespan of a chicken is, but Google puts it at around 15 years. He only flew in to first visit us about three years ago, but who knows how long he’s been waking up the neighbourhood. Maybe that was the problem…

He’d fly in for a feed every morning at 6:30am and when I left for work at 8:30am he was preening in front of the mirror we’d bought him - thinking a "friend" might calm down any excessive noise. By 10am my part-time helper had found him underneath our bedrooom window, not a mark on him, but certainly not alive. Now I’m wondering if he had a heart attack over his reflection, although the sight of a "fellow chook" would fascinate him for hours, so I doubt it. A neighbour said she saw the monkeys playing with him - but they normally stick to themselves and he must have already been dead, as they’ve been known to spirit away injured birds, but are unlikely to take away (literrally) anything already dead.

So he’s either choked on something he mistook for food, or he’s had a heart attack. Poor Chook Chook, we really will miss you - you were part of our rural slice of Singapore… and there goes the chicken I’d defrosted for dinner!