Do Not Let Dexter Anywhere Near

So, here is how you sort out stick insect poo from stick insect eggs.

1. Remove your sticks from their house (they will be quite unhappy about this and will show it if you look closely)

2. Tip out assorted eggs/poo onto some plain paper (newspaper gets really confusing).

3. Get bowl of water and drop some in. The eggs will sink and the poo will float. Remove eggs and leave to dry (do not use a hairdryer, like Dexter did).

4. Or, make a shape sorter. The poo is smaller than the eggs and will drop though a household sieve and leave the eggs (wash it afterwards but not with the eggy/poo water, like Dexter did)

5. Do not let Dexter anywhere near either of these processes.

6. Do not let Dexter do either of these processes in your guest bedroom.

7. Do not let Dexter do either of these processes in your guest bedroom and then get the vacuum cleaner out.

Job Done Then

Two disasters have ocurred and they are nothing to do with me. I left Dexter in charge of the sticks while I was in New York.The Parents had given Dexter's parents a key so they could come in and make the house look busy while we were away. Turns out Dexter's parents left that job to Dexter as well.
So the first disaster was that the house seemed to have exploded.
'It's a well known burglary prevention method,' he explains. We are perching on the hall welcome mat which is the one tidy space in the house. Mum is waddling around, trying to put things back in cupboards and drawers.
'That was very kind of you, Dexter,' she says and if teeth can really be gritted, then hers were all ready for severe winter weather. 'But did you have to make everywhere quite so messy?'
'The thing is,' says Dexter, 'our house has been burgled twice and it's always really tidy not like your house.'
'Thankyou, Dexter and there was me tidying up before we left,' says Mum and she gives a hysterical little laugh.
'So, I thought I would make completely sure that any burglars would not even bother with your house because they would not want to sort through all the piles and stuff.'
Mum is rubbing her enormous stomach. 'Very thoughtful of you but you shouldn't have gone to so much trouble - I think I have to lie down now.'
'But were you burgled?' he asked.
Mum sighs and shakes her head.
'Job done then,' says Dexter.
I pull him up the stairs to my room. Inside, I point out the stick insect tank. 'I quite like the new non tidy arrangement,' I say to him lulling him into a false sense of me being happy to see him.
He shrugs his shoulders in a modest sort of way.
'But I do not like the fact that you were so busy untidyting the house that you forgot to feed the sticks.'
'Ah,' he says. 'Are they all right?'
We both peer in through the glass. The sticks are plastered to the side in a desperate sort of way. They have nibbled all the greenery I left for them.
'Look there,' I say pointing at the bottom of the tank.
'What?'
'It's covered.'
'What?'
'Covered in poo and EGGS!'
What?'
I sigh and lift the lid of the tank. 'The sticks were so stressed they all had babies and now YOU are going to sort out the babies from the poo.'
He pulls a face but does not run away. 'Poo eh? And babies? Hmmm.'
And I am not sure wether it is the poo or the eggs that interests him most. All I know is that there are four million of them and they all look nearly but not actually, the same.
Get that job done then.
P.S. The camera containing photos was almost instantly lost when we walked in through the door but hopefully not forever.

Fascinating Eggy Facts for Easter

The largest egg in the world is an ostrich egg and this can measure up to 20cm in length and 15cm round. It probably has the strongest shell in the world and if 4 of me and 2 of Dexter could stand on it (bit tricky) it would not even crack. Also, the ostrich egg would take the longest to boil at about 40 minutes to make it a dippy soldier egg (soft-boiled)and not one of those disappointing bouncy-yolk eggs (hard-boiled).

On the subject of eating eggs, the most bouncy-yolk eggs eaten in one go is 14 in 58 seconds and the most dippy soldier eggs eaten in one go is 32 in 78 seconds.

The most eggs laid by one bird is 361 in 364 days. The was a Black Orpington called Princess Te Kawan. Crazy name, crazy chicken.


Fascinating Eggy Tradition

Grandpa Jack is a great one for 'jarping' and he taught me. This is a bit like playing conkers but using eggs. So you get your dippy-soldier eggs on Easter morning and you say to your neighbour at the breakfast table,
'I say, Happy Easter and all that and how about a bit of jarping?'
And hopefully your neighbour is a bit none the wiser and says,
'Of course, you go first,' because he does not know how to do it. So you can have first bash at his egg which is important because the winner is the one who pulverises the other egg into tiny eggy pieces. My record is 5 eggs in 10 seconds. Eggtastic.

Jarping can get pretty messy.

Funny Eggy Jokes

Q. What kind of egg lives by the sea?
A. An egg shell.
(Dexter told me that one, it is not brilliant but it does involve an egg)

Q. What did the eggs do when the traffic lights turned green?
A. Egg-celerate.

Q. How do monsters like their eggs?
A. Terri-fried.

Q. How did the egg get up the mountain?
A. It scrambled up.

Q. Who wrote Great Eggspectations?
A. Charles Chickens.




And last but not least my Fascinating Eggy Invention

Simon Rhymes, thought up the idea for the Bulb Egg Maker while studying project design at Bournemouth University. He experimented with more than 600 eggs and now says he can now produce a perfect boiled egg in six minutes.

He uses high-powered halogen bulbs to cook the egg before slicing the top off and dipping his toast soldiers in.

Maybe you could just stick an egg under a light bulb for half an hour and it will cook but then it would not look like it was going to be transported across time and space in that fantastic glowing egg chamber.

I want one.

HAPPY EASTER!