A Bear in a Tree

You can’t buy quail eggs from TESCO, but you can get them from Sainsbury’s. I’m sure this is not a surprise for those of you acquainted with the nuances of British supermarkets, but I thought it made for a good opening sentence.

I have had them, because a shop in Southwell used to sell them. Again, no surprise there, for those of you who know the place. The only mystery is why people eat quail eggs. I suppose they make a good sized snack for a teddy bear’s picnic. but apart from that they are a bit of a waste of space. We had them twice, we had them hard-boiled with salad. It was fun, but the faff of peeling an egg the size of a marble tended to spoil the fun.

You can make them into Scotch eggs, but as I’ve rarely felt the need to make my own. Even when I have felt the need, I have resisted it. The trick of making your own is, it seems, to leave the yolk runny. I can’t think why, because runny yolks are one of those childhood aversions that has left me.

Bear with seed packet from Kew

I was once loading chickens onto a transporter when the man loading the top tier asked me a question. As I looked up and opened my mouth to reply, a defecating chicken scored a direct hit. A veritable, virtually unrepeatable, hols in one. Oh, the amusement I caused as an entire loading crew double up in laughter. I’d rather do that again than eat a Scotch egg with a runny middle. I’ve never been able to do that trick where you flick up a peanut and catch it in your mouth. Part of the problem, apart from diabolically bad coordination,  is that every time I try I have a flashback to that night . . .

Even that isn’t the worst story I know about such things. However, there are limits to what I want to write on WordPress.

I have been thinking about them because, when my mind was drifting recently, I started to wonder about pickled quail’s eggs. The only problem, as mentioned before, is peeling them. When I pickle a dozen hen’s eggs it seems like hard labour by the sixth one. I’d hate to have to do a couple of dozen quail eggs.

Bear in the Garden

Straw Bale Bowie Bear