Sharp frost during night & hens’ water frozen. Snow & sleet during most of the day. Short sunny intervals. Blossom seems undamaged.
Perennial alyssum coming into flower. Scyllas° & grape hyacinths coming to an end.
Starlings very busy obtaining straw for nests. Mrs Anderson[1] heard cuckoo at 5.45. Caught a thrush in the kitchen, unhurt; a full-grown bird, very yellow inside beak.
Sixteen eggs (highest).
[1] A neighbour who ‘did’ for the Orwells, according to Monica Bald in Remembering Orwell, 115. Peter Davison
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
Oh for a pronoun – given that this is Eileen’s diary now. “I” caught a thrush in the kitchen? Or did “G” catch it? Is G dictating from his sick bed – or so sick he can’t even catch a bird trapped in the kitchen, surely a task he would normally have loved. Or is he working so hard in the study on his ” “masterpiece” ” that he has no time for such avian mundanities these days.
Whatever, she is certainly smashing the daily egg production records.
You could say she is bringing home the bacon.
I have resisted the conspiracy theorists so far, but I have to admit that “Mrs Anderson heard cuckoo at 5.45” does sound suspiciously like code.
Yes, it is more than obvious that “heard cuckoo at 5.45” is a euphemism.