In good hands

A bright, sunny spring day in Carmine Superiore, with a nice breeze zipping the windsurfers across the glittering lake below.

Hatching Day has brought us a couple more chicks...there are now a grand total of thirteen honey-coloured fluff-balls dozing under the warming lamp. A more than 50% return (on 21 eggs at the start), and the best we've done since our first year playing this game.

All mothers, I'm sure, understand that when the house falls eerily silent, there's trouble afoot. In the last 24 hours, though, when I've gone upstairs to investigate, I've found not a theft, some wanton destruction or other childish naughtiness, but two rapt faces bent over a tiny, warm life cradled carefully in tiny, cool hands.

Happy days.