Mystery solved

I've been thinking that we have been short of eggs lately and had no idea why. It's just been this week when we have stayed home more than usual because I'm cream crackered that I noticed that Merlin in particular tends to disappear for a while each day. I scoured the bushes today and found nothing so when Craig came home from work I had him climb over the wire fencing and willow screening, past the rain harvesting tanks and beyond to see what he could see. There in a gap between our fence and our neighbours were fourteen eggs! Craig couldn't even reach them and had to be helped by Hermione with a fishing net. I'm not sure how to solve this one. I don't want to restrict them from free ranging as I find they are so much cheaper to keep, happier and lay more this way - but at the same time I don't want this shenanigans each time I need to collect eggs.

Miles spent a fair while today bringing the outdoors inside. I think I was supposed to be pleased when he dumped masses of grass, leaves and sticks all over the dining room floor. As it was I was in an 'anything for a quiet life' mood today so just chilled about it and vacuumed it all up when he was done - which I think was perhaps the right thing to do.

Also tried out our new classical music for kids CD. Hermione loves classical music (as well as Girls Aloud and load of other poppy stuff). Miles on the other hand protested strongly saying that some Mozart we listened to was 'no fun for boys' and 'only for people who are crazy'.

Talking of Mozart, last night's small hour reading included The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo. I was very moved by it. It tells the tale of a boy who knows his father used to play violin but no longer will. He eventually learns that his father and mother were once in a concentration camp and they were spared death because they were excellent musicians - but were forced to play at the concentration gates as some sort of facade to calm the train loads of prisoners who arrived and were taken off to the gas chambers. I'm in two minds about reading this with Hermione. I think it has so much potential for discussion - obviously more WW2 stuff but also about Venice where it was set and of course Mozart. I'm just a little uncertain as although we have looked a lot at WW2 recently we have tended to skip the gas chamber part as I'm not quite sure she's ready for that nitty gritty yet - she knows lots of people were killed but we've not gone into detail. Anyone else studied it?