Wild Kingdom

I've just noticed that crawling beneath my office desk was a little crab, or maybe a not so little crab.  I guess the term is relative to the amount of pain that it could impart by nipping a toe!  I'm seriously reconsidering changing my jandals for shoes!  The last thing I need is yet another creature biting at my feet while I work!  You will notice in the photo I already have a mosquito coil under there as I get eaten alive when I forget to spray on repellant, which wears off mid afternoon anyway.  Still on things animalistic, a colleague called out across the office this morning if anyone knew how to set a mouse trap?  Always one to add to my 'mancard', especially as I failed to stop a leak in a bathroom pipe last night, I volunteered (it was still early in the morning and not many others had arrived at work to volunteer!).  Well this wasn't a mouse trap, it was more a horse trap!  "Well, it's more of a rat" she said - no kidding!  This trap was like a solid steel guillotine like thing, with spikes at one end and a seriously strong spring mechanism at the other, like a catapult.  So, worrying that it might go off on me and impale a finger, I set it rather gingerly.  I suggested peanut butter would be the best bait, assuming there wasn't a t-bone steak in the fridge, but the best that could be got was some taro.  Do rats like taro?  Well I guess Rarotongan ones do.  So we are all now eagerly awaiting an ear shattering twang and the anguished cries from a decapitated rat!  Will my 'mancard' extend to disposing of the body??  I'm still to chicken to pick up a geckho!  Until that point what I envisage happening is some huge survival of the fittest battle between rat and crab - can you imagne the scence, and sound!  It would be cartoonesque.  Now all we need is a giant centipede to enter the scene for a three-way!  Sounds like a Chinese kung-fu programme!
So what else is happening...

Well, the kids have started daycare and seem to be enjoying it.  Sooo much different from NZ but that's too be expected.  I'm absolutely loving the time I get to play with the kids, go for a swim etc after work.  We finish at 4.00 and no one hangs around past 4.01!  So I'm home by 4.30pm.  Janine and I settle down eventually to watch New Zealand's TV1 news at 8.30pm and then maybe catch an episode of Breaking Bad.  Where does the time go, and where did we get it from in NZ?!

Just returned from a walk at lunchtime in the midday sun - only mad dogs and Englishmen indeed!  Inlcude Kiwi expats in that lot.  And there are a lot of maddogs here.  I was accosted by one while scootering to work this morning.  I went to kick it but then remebered that I had open toed jandals on and should it get hold of me I'd probably be dragged off the scooter and mawled to pieces!  Best to outrun it, which on my scooter could be a close run thing!  Actually, my $500 is still running like clockwork - a clunky, spluttering clock whose speedo doesn't work - but still gets me from A to B!

Tomorrow night we have a Ministry and Teachers quiz night at the golf club and my team of six - aptly named Dazed & Confused - will provail!  The prizes are really good - a series of flash printers - which all teams have agreed to donate to an outter island school should they be successful.  Somewhat like Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire...without the celebrities, nor the millions.

Incidentally, here is the transcript from 'email rounders' this afternoon in relation to the quiz night;

"For those preparing for tomorrow night…………….

Quiz questions

1. If you bumped a ginglymus, which part of your body might you have bruised?
2. The Mesozoic era is better known as ‘The Age of the Dinosaurs’ and is made up of three periods. Triassic is the first – what are the second and third?
3. What does the unit ‘candela’ describe?
4. What is the group of muscles surrounding an eye’s pupil called?
5. The weed Salvinia molesta is a problem for which ecosystem – a) deserts, b) wheat crops, c) waterways.

Please make sure all answers to number 1 are repeatable in public

My Answer:
If this is the level of difficulty of tomorrows questions I might just perch myself at the bar and knock my ‘ginglymus’ against the wall!

A reply:
Answer No. 2, the Jusassic Period and the Cretacious Period (do we get penalised for wrong spelling?) :(
And no...we didn't google it!

  
My Reply:
Ah yes ‘Cretacious Park’ that was the sequel wasn’t it?


I think those outer schools better start fundraising if they want a new printer!!

I've also just registered for a 5-a-side football side that will play after work.  Let's pray for cooler weather!  We are called "The Sons of Pitches", very clever I thought!  I've heard they play rough...

But for now I must sign off or this will become a book!

Ka Kite

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