I dashed to my neighbour to borrow an egg one evening while in the middle of making a lasagne. They were very generous and said not to bother paying them back. But, of course, I wanted to repay them. I didn’t get to the shops that week, so 10 days later I took three eggs in to my neighbour: “One to replace the one you gave me, one because yours was a big one and these are small, and one for interest.”

Imagine my surprise two days later when my husband came inside with three eggs he had found randomly placed on our back lawn!

I checked them out, broke them into a saucer each, smelled them and then cooked them up for lunch. As I was marvelling about this seeming miracle, I looked out the back window (looking for more eggs?) and I saw through the fence an egg sitting on the lawn at my neighbour’s house. When I went to investigate, I found two eggs on her lawn. She declined my offer to cook them, as she is pregnant and didn’t want to use “dodgy” eggs. I checked them out and they were just as good as the first three.

We are puzzled. Is there a stray hen around here, but why wouldn’t she find a nice laying “nest” under the hedge? There are ducks in the area but these were hen’s eggs.

What do you think? Do miracles still happen in New Zealand in 2011?

– Elizabeth James, Dunedin