Janice allowed herself a free moment to look up from her laptop and gaze out of the café onto Republic Square. She still felt resentful at being sent on yet another trip so soon, but the Minister was under pressure and needed to be seen to be taking the Bird “Flu threat seriously; while he packed for his winter break in Jamaica, Janice had prepared herself for a week of navigating torrents of ill-recorded statistics from all the major poultry producers in Armenia. For six days now she had been escorted through farms, factories and offices by Nikolas and his wife Solya, each of them working for the Agriculture Ministry as Janice did back home.

Not only did she spend her days with her new colleagues, but she also stayed in their home, a convenience that had seemed like a good idea when it was first offered. The Sarkisians were a friendly, generous couple with no children, and it was good to have a bit of company in the evenings. Company was the one thing she always missed when she stayed in a hotel, no matter how many stars it boasted. The company on this trip was good and she had a lot in common with her hosts, but they had learned English only for work purposes so it was adequate for little more than discussions about Avian “Flu, Salmonella and Botulism. Janice quickly began to regret the arrangements and she missed Matt. He never came with her on her trips.

He didn’t relish the idea of having to fend for himself in places like Baku and Katowice while she showed farmers how to keep track of millions of chickens on computers that were forever crashing. There wasn’t much of the adventurer in Matt, and he hadn’t heard of Yerevan till Janice had mentioned that she was going there. So Janice traveled alone.

The journey had been long and troublesome. Bad weather in Paris delayed her first flight leading on to a missed connection in Vienna. To make matters worse the only food available on all three “planes was chicken, variously cooked, but nevertheless chicken, and Janice hates any kind of poultry. Day in and day out she pours over data reflecting the well-being or otherwise of chickens, ducks, turkeys and every other kind of bird, both wild and domesticated, so she likes to eat something that takes her mind off work.