Try a William Boyd novel. They hook you from the start, have interesting and original plots and are not overly long. What's more there are lots of them, and relatively easy to find in second-hand bookshops. Perfect for a holiday read, if you are stuck on a difficult novel or just want something a bit different. His books sometimes feel like he has written them with the aid of a special book-kaleidoscope: twist it again, 10 bizarre plot-lines fall out and Boyd glues them together in 300 pages. Try one!
It is still very early days for our orchard - this year our harvest will consist of 3 pears and a handful of hazelnuts. But the hazelnuts are good ones - cobs and filberts, from a Webb's Prize Cob and a White Filbert respectively. And, what's more, we have beaten the squirrels to them. The squirrels seem to have concentrated on the plum tree (original, not in our new orchard) and many of the surrounding sycamores have bits of plum sitting on their more horizontal branches. Of course, as John Seymour memorably wrote, it is OK to lose crops to marauders such as squirrels and pheasants . . . as long as you eat them . The freezer now has a fair bit of (plum-fattened) squirrel-meat in it.
. . . until the eggs will hatch. We've bought an incubator. Following the sad death of our broody bantam chicken and the White Sussex breed being as broody as garden spades and our chicken coop dwindling to an occupancy of 6, we decided we'd have a go with technology. The incubator has a temperature setting (currently at 38.2C) and an auto turner. The eggs need to be turned 5 x a day. Humidity is also important, 50% for the first 18 days and then 70-80% for the last three. The instructions advise adding water at the bottom of the bator (chicken blog slang) and checking daily. But there is no hygrometer - we have just ordered one. We have 9 eggs and we will see. I've been waiting 4 days now. How anybody can wait 9 months, I don't know.
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