April 3. My elder daughter called Melissa to find out how Sydney and Candy are doing.

It seems they are settling in. Candy was so terrified yesterday that she badly bit a chihuahua and injured her badly.

“Button, listen to these bits of news I’ve cut and kept to share with you.”

“Tell me. I love you reading out loud to me.”

“See this picture? It shows a little girl fast asleep but she is actually a mummy. Chinese archeologists have excavated an extraordinary cemetery in the middle of a desert, north of Tibet. Its inhabitants died almost 4000 years ago, yet their bodies have been well preserved by the dry air. Their graveyard, known as Small River Cemetery No 5, lies near a dried-up riverbed in the TarinBasin, a region encircled by forbidding mountain ranges.”

“4000 years, yet the child is so well preserved!”

“The next is of a hungry fox who sneaked into a chicken coop for dinner and got murdered by a cock and three of his lady loves. The birds knocked their perch table on the fox’s head and pecked it to death.”

“Good lord!”

“A new strain of mosquitoes have been created in which females cannot fly thus curbing the transmission of dengue fever. Dengue causes severe flu-like symptoms after the virus is spread through the bite of infected female mosquitoes for which there is no vaccine or treatment.”

“That should be of great help but it’s cruel.”

“How much does a normal egg weigh?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“20 gms. But a hen in Britain has laid an egg that weighs 120 gms. See the picture and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”

“It’s a monster egg. If it hatches, will a monster chick emerge? Or will it be a full-grown bird?”