Four Legs Good, Two Legs BAAAAAD!

Life in rural Australia is a little different from life in Haywards Heath, or even Holland-on-Sea or the other places that we've lived. As a farming community Ruth and I have been exposed to aspects of life that we were sheltered from in the city. Yesterday, for example, I was witness to the execution of four ducks for crimes against the State (namely being ugly and going to the toilet in the water that the chickens drink from). I was close enough to see the actual act of beheading, but I couldn't get too close because I was terrified of what Goul would say if I accidentally got some duck blood on the FC Nantes T-shirt that he sent me. We shall be enjoying Peking duck some time in the next week anyway, so it's not all bad news in this Stalin-esque regime.

For those of you who are interested I received a few name suggestions for Eddie's (girl)friend. I dismissed one of them immediately for being crass and totally unsuitable. It had come from someone who really should know better. Never mind dad, I've let your other suggestion through. The suggestions were as follows: Number Six, Edwina, the Eagle Edwards, Salome, Dinah, Sheila, Lounge, Dorothy and Aunt Mavis. If anyone has a preference then please let me know. I'll make a decision next week and, of course, reserve the right to ignore everyone else's preferences (preferenci?).

Tomorrow there's an Easter festival in town. The churches organise it as a gift to the town, meaning that they make it happen and subsidise it so that everything is free. It seems like an excellent idea to me, and it tends to attract a couple of thousand people - which isn't bad for anything run in a town with the same population as Haywards Heath. I'll let you know how it goes.

We've been in Oz for about six weeks and we're still waiting for the stuff we shipped from England in January. It should have arrived at our place within 8 to 10 weeks, but we're in week 12 and no sign of it. It actually arrived in the country at the beginning of March, but has been held up at customs and quarantine because they apparently 'have a large backlog'. I'm beginning to fear that what this means is that Australian Customs Officials are walking around in my underwear, playing my PS2 games and showing people photos of 'their new friends in England' but I'm sure that the fine, upstanding, hard-working men and women of Customs and Quarantine would never engage in such acts. Surely?


In further animal related chicanery, Ruth saw a spider that she claimed was the biggest spider she had ever seen - in fact, she described it as being 'bigger than a tarantula'. It was a relatively harmless Huntsman spider but, as I've already hinted at, being a non-human at Cornerstone means that you live on borrowed time. A thrown shoe later the spider was regretting showing its ugly, alien mandible-filled face around here. The deed was actually done by Marshall, a twelve-year old boy, who earned the adoration of my wife and other females at the scene. Take a look at the above photo, the crumpled spider corpse next to the shoe of a twelve-year old boy. Bigger than a tarantula? I'll let you decide.

Whilst you are thinking about that, say hello to a sheep or - as next year's students will know her - 'dinner'.