The Practice Run

My ebay eggs arrived yesterday. They were brilliantly packaged, well protected and perfect. Perfect, that is, until I dropped them. Then they were very far from perfect, and more of a gooey mess. I could have cried.

This was made infinitely worse by the fact that I had an audience, and had just finished excitedly explaining my plans. My audience was reasonably sympathetic, but I could see the swallowed references to scrambled eggs bubbling in their throats. Humph.

After spending a good few minutes mentally flogging myself over the potential chick mass murder, I contacted the ebay seller again. I grovelled and pleaded via email for more eggs, explaining my own clumsiness and offering to pay the same again. In the mean time, I rang around every possible pekin breeder I could get the number for. Not only did they not have any frizzle eggs, they didn't have eggs full stop. Sob.

For the rest of the day, every time I passed the laptop I hit refresh on the ebay inbox. A bit of searching meant that I saw a listing by the same breeder for 12 eggs, and I watched it avidly. Just to ratchet up the tension a bit more, this listing mentioned the fact that it would be the last batch of eggs from one breeding pen, as the hens had gone broody. Broodiness tends to spread amongst a flock, and I had the feeling that this was my last shot.

The ever tolerant husband was sympathetic to my plight and made no mention of the money I was syphoning from his bank account. The eldest child found my mishap amusing, while the youngest looked at me like I was a serial killer.

Finally, at just gone 7pm, the breeder replied to my email. She too was sympathetic, and offered to send my six eggs at a rock bottom price. I practically bit her hand off. So right now, six more frizzle pekin eggs are going through the postal system.

I shall unwrap them in the middle of the bed.