Duds

The moral of this story. Don't give up on the duds. 16 duck eggs in an incubator. Over the course of a night (no idea which night it was now. Time doesn't really work round here the same as it does elsewhere) seven hatched. That morning we set up a nursery and moved all seven out of the incubator, leaving the incubator switched on to give the "duds" a bit more time. The next day, one more hatched! So now we have eight. They're our best visitor attraction, especially when there are kids around. One young girl who was here when the first seven were hatching was comparing egg hatching to human childbirth, and commented that there is less screaming with ducklings.

My job yesterday was to take the youngest out of the incubator and put him/her/it in the nursery with the others. So I introduced it to water and food and waited to watch a while. Brand new ducklings are hilarious. Everything is new and interesting and needs to be pecked at. They spend a while going for each others' eyes before they learn that other ducklings aren't edible. I watched one of them spend a good minute or two looking and pecking at his own disproportionally huge feet, trying to work out what they were. Even I find them rather cute. I have now experienced the look on a duckling's face when it does its first ever poo. It's a very entertaining look - shocked and surprised.

You meet some lovely people here. Two girls left this morning after three nights here, and we've spent some time with them and generally got to know them a bit. This morning they came to find me to say goodbye before they left. Somewhere inside of me said "eek" in a very small voice. They left their box of incense for the other helper here, who had admired the smell. Slowly this place might just be restoring my faith in people.

This post has now contained enough of what I would call "pinkandfluffy" to last for quite some time. I now have to promise that my next will be more serious and sensible, with much less aww-isn't-that-lovely rubbish.

I'm off to Grantown this afternoon. Not really sure what for, but I really ought to leave the site every few days. Maybe I'll buy some biscuits. That would make me happy.