As A Teenager, Elspeth Barker Had Two Great Desires: To Have A Passionate Love Affair With A Poet And To Be A Writer. She Achieved The First When She And The Poet George Barker Fell In Love: Although He Was Perpetually Broke, Had Several Children By Previous Lovers And Couldn't Marry Her As His First Wife Refused A Divorce, They Were Extremely Happy Together, Had Five Children And Finally Married Two Years Before George's Death. The Only Trouble Was That Looking After The Somewhat Impractical George, Their Children, Some Of George's Other Children (and Occasionally His Ex-lover) And The Family's Menagerie Of Pets, Meant That Elspeth Had No Time For Writing. Fortunately, After Her Children Left Home George And Her Eldest Daughter Raffaella Encouraged Her To Get Started. Since The 1990s She Wrote For Papers Including The Independent, The Guardian And The Sunday Times. Notes From The Henhouse Is A Collection Of The Resulting Journalism. Funny, Moving And Totally Delightful, It Is A Book About A Life, About Pet Labradors And Pesky Agas, About Drunken Saturday Nights And Blissful Mornings In The Garden, About Books And Babies, About Widowhood And Aging. Elspeth Barker ; Prologue By Raffaella Barker. First Published In Us By Scribner.