A task he takes very seriously:

Every day:

Of course, all reasonable people are used to this backwards and forwards nonsense with every kind of food and drink under the sun and routinely laugh it off with a good dose of “all things in moderation” common sense. Only the media seem to suck it up like a sponge, with this latest egg story apparently being headline news everywhere.

I was blissfully unaware until it was given a prime slot on the BBC evening news, the highlight being the way they managed to wheel out the amusingly named Lucy Egerton from the British Egg Information Service without cracking so much as a childish grin.

The cynical side of me though, as always, responded with a weary “who paid for this ‘research’ then?” No surprises in the answer, or the fact that you have to dig a bit deeper than the news stories (a.k.a. press releases) to find out. It was of course the egg industry, which also seems to double up as the acronym industry, what with the BEIS (British Egg Information Service), the BEIC (British Egg Industry Council), BEPA (British Egg Products Association), the BEA (British Egg Association) and many more.

None of this though, should detract from the fact that you should eat eggs. Because they’re nice. Poached, boiled, scrambled, fried or omeletted – you can’t go wrong with an egg. Ok, you could – there is eggnog, for example. But in general, my advice, which I say is just as valuable as some ‘scientific’ research paid for by a vested interest, is to eat plenty of eggs. I wouldn’t advise eating eggs produced by an industry though – instead, eat eggs produced by a free* and happy chicken, preferably your own.

*As with free software, the “free” is as in freedom, although of course if they’re your own chickens you don’t pay for the eggs)

They settled in well and soon joined the rest of the ducks on the pond, but I suspect that despite the safety advice I gave them before we left, they will be returning home to us in due course – riddled with bullets and oven-ready. In the meantime, the young chickens are over the moon about not having to share their shed at night.

The young chickens are not quite sure what to make of them though, and much fun was had today herding the ducks towards them and watching them scatter left, right and centre. I tried to capture the excitement on video, but I guess you had to be there:

Talking of the young chickens, they’re doing very well. Unlike the ducklings, they’re extremely friendly and like nothing more than to be picked up and stroked. They have no idea that they’re going to end up on my dinner plate, and that’s just the way it should be. In the meantime, they’re a happy bunch, at least when the ducklings are not bearing down on them.

Just Daddy & Mia today, as Nibby is off doing some horsey thing all week. The day started with me trying to feed 1 toddler, 8 ducklings, 8 chicks, 3 hens, 1 cockerel, 1 cat and 1 dog, put the child seat in the Merc and get going in time to get to Wetherby for 9:30, all in most awful torrential rain. By some miracle, we pulled out of the drive at twenty past, which is more than enough time for the short journey. Unfortunately, we’d only got round the first bend when progress was obstructed by a selection of fire engines and ambulances, seemingly due to the fact that one of the many morons who drive down this road had finally achieved their intention of hitting another vehicle head on.

Due to an unfortunate quirk of geography, in the form of the River Wharfe, the shortest alternative route is a good 10 miles (I’d guess) which in this morning’s weather conditions took half an hour. Along the way, several other morons* attempted to hit us head-on, and we negotiated various flooded sections of road.

Anyway, we made it into town eventually – late, but not too late, for my first experience of Jo Jingles. It was pretty much as expected really, with me literally breaking into a sweat trying to keep the wilful and rambunctious Mia under control while everybody else’s toddlers appeared totally compliant. Mia’s primary point of interest was attempting to take over the CD player, and when repeatedly thwarted, switching it off at the plug. “Don’t worry, you’re not doing any worse than your wife does” I was told ‘encouragingly’. Still, it was good fun all in all.

This afternoon, a trip to Sainsbury’s, which involved driving though several rivers and lakes which had appeared where the road was supposed to be. The highlight for me was buying a litre bottle of own-brand shampoo for 29p, and noting that the ingredients were the same as all the expensive crap in our bathroom. Also a 29p bottle of shower-gel, which has the same ingredients as the shampoo. If my hair falls out as a result, I will post pictures here.

Talking of ducklings (I did mention ducklings several paragraphs ago, try and pay attention) I’m sorry to report that the imprinting thing doesn’t work quite the way it does in the cartoons, and I’m not mummy duck after all. I didn’t spend enough time with them in the first few days, and they’re totally wild and petrified of me, which made cleaning their pen out last night a traumatic experience for them, and indirectly me. In the end, rather than try and get them out I had to ‘build’ and new floor and slide the walls from the old one to the new with the ducklings in between.

Right, that’s more than enough typing for a day when I’m not working. The original question of whether anything interesting happened is totally subjective of course, but I suspect the answer is no for the majority of people.

*The morons along this road come in two categories, dopey housewife and be-suited sociopath in BMW. They’re only distinguishable close up though, since the driving is the same. Too fast, not in control of the car, and frequently not even looking where they’re going.

Here’s another duckling picture. They’re a completely different kettle of fish to pheasant and chicken chicks. Rather than a tendency to peck at each other, the ducklings preen each other, and even help each other out of the eggs. I scoffed a bit when I read that last part somewhere, but then I saw it twice with my own eyes.

The other main non-physical difference is that they respond to quacks. I can summon the whole group by quacking, and a different tone of quack sends them away again.

One late arrival this morning makes a total of eight ducklings. There are a few more that I don’t think are going to come out, but you never know.

Here’s a fantastic picture of the first duck having just hatched at twenty to eight. A second hatched minutes later. You have to look close up to really appreciate the cuteness of this little creature – I can’t wait to see what it looks like when the feathers dry out.

*For seafaring types, in fathoms, this is 1.16666 recurring.

**For horseracing types, in furlongs this is 0.000757575 recurring.