A Waiting Game

Today, at 10 am to be precise, the quail eggs are due to hatch. They are not automata though and a day either side of the hatch time is quite common. Three days ago I stopped turning the eggs and increased the humidity in the incubator to 75%, hence when I tried to take a photo of the eggs it is impossible to see anything due to the condensation on the incubator window.

According to the books, from the sixteenth day (Saturday) a gentle chirping noise can be heard from inside the shell. I can't say that I have definitely heard anything, but it is easy to get confused between chirping noises  from inside the incubator and chirping noises outside the window, in the garden.
Again according to the books, from the seventeenth day movement of the egg indicates that it is due to hatch. There has definitely been no movement.
All I can do is wait and hope.
Ironically as I don't go out very often, I have two events lined up for today. The first is my second attempt at screen printing, where I am due to go for two hours this afternoon. I may make Rosie stay with the eggs and text me any news. The second event, is my first monthly meeting of the Radish Readers Group tonight. Whilst it would be a shame to miss my first discussion, especially as it is discussing The Daughter of Time, if there is egg breaking activity going on in the incubator at 7.30, there is no way I'm going to leave it.
Although last year's experience of watching a chick hatch was that it took several hours and was thrilling and boring at the same time. I couldn't take my eyes off the egg, as each effort made the crack a bit bigger yet in between efforts the chick would rest for ten to fifteen minutes.
As I said, wait and hope.

The Boy Done Good!

I was going to give you an update on how the seeds are progressing but that can wait, this is much more thrilling,
Yesterday when we picked Oliver up from nursery, Amy his carer, showed us a list of words she had written  out which Oliver then learnt.

 I was highly impressed, as he isn't 3 until April. I said as much to her and she said half apologetically 'I think he's only memorised them' but what else is reading? When I read I don't sound out the word first, letter by letter.

So this morning when I was reading to him in bed, I was tempted to try him with another word. I chose zoo because as I since discovered, it appears 30 times in the book, we are reading 'Put me in the Zoo'.
 He soon picked it up and started looking for it on the next page, but unfortunately he can read it but he can't say it, he was saying 'Look  hoo'.
On the way to nursery I bumped into my neighbour Nicky and had to tell her. As a former primary school headmistress and a keen reader herself, I knew she would understand my excitement. Oliver rose to the challenge by reading out to her all the words on yesterday's list. Rather than dismiss this as a memory trick she pointed out that there were no visual clues on the paper so he is literally reading them.
We then contentedly shared the prospect of the pleasures and benefits to him, if as seems likely he is reading properly by the time he goes to school. Nicky pointed out the extra knowledge of the world children gain from reading and this is very true, the only knowledge I have about sailing I gained from Arthur Ransome, the care of horses from 'Jill has Two Ponies' and the first stirrings of a feminist consciousness at the age of 6 from reading the Famous Five books.
Just the other day there was a report from Dutch university on how reading fiction increases empathy. I'm sure this is true, I spent my childhood reading obsessively and compulsively and now I cannot bear horror films in particular films of torture like 'Saw' as I cannot stop myself feeling the victim's pain.
So I want Oliver to have increased empathy, and knowledge and to have a head start on school but most of all I want him to know the complete pleasure of being able to lose yourself in a book.

Radish Readers Group*

Last night, friend and I joined a book club. This was part of our New Year's resolution to try new things and meet new people. I know most people have already joined the gym, gone a few times and then returned to pre January sloth, but we don't like to rush things. Better late than never as they say.
It is held at the Inkwell Arts Centre in Chapel Allerton http://www.inkwellarts.org.uk/about-us/ which is in a building, I used to frequent twenty five years ago, when it was the Shoulder of Mutton pub. I could see absolutely no trace of the rather dingy pub I remembered, in the clean white interior, although they do still have the big pub garden which must be nice in summer.
I hope the members of the book club don't mind me saying it, but they were overwhelmingly white, middle class, middle aged and female but then so am I, so I should fit in well. It was a refuge of Radio 4 listeners.

Last night was the annual meeting, where they chose what books they would be reading for the forthcoming year. Members put forward nominations and described them a little, generally said why they liked them and we voted on them at the end. One woman put forward a book and described why she didn't like it although thought it might be a good one to discuss. Unsurprisingly it didn't get any votes, she had been too eloquent in her dislike. The chair (I can't remember any names) said that she would accept suggestions on the night so I was toying with the idea of suggesting A Daughter of Time, given its topicality but was then surprised to find that someone else had nominated it. The person who had nominated it had either forgotten or wasn't listening as there was a dead silence when the time came to describe it so I leapt in and started talking about it. It turned out that maybe 6 people had read it and a few others had heard it discussed on the radio, and interested in knowing more about Richard III, nearly all the group were open to it. So that is the first book I will be discussing with the book group next month, which is very convenient, as I am already halfway through re-reading it.

* I have absolutely no idea why they are called the Radish Readers Group, that will be a question for next month. It makes me think of Peter Rabbit.