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I spent half an hour writing a humorous entry for the blog last night. It gave all the news and the low-down on all the pictures. I pressed the button to publish and the delightful machine informed me that there had been a malfunction. About 1 millisecond later I remembered that it is a really good idea to save your work regularly.

Anyway I am not going to recreate the same entry, the time has passed.

You will see 5 new pictures have been posted. 2 of them relate to Chantelle’s birthday meal at The Bushman’s Hut in Kaitaia. Good food, much appreciated by us all especially on a Tuesday night. Chantelle has a new hobby that is keeping her out of mischief. She has been coating boards, plant-pots, wine bottles, even a new post box in mosaic. It looks good, kind of Hundertwasser style. You have to be careful, if you leave something long enough it ends up coated in mosaic. Chantelle is typically modest about her creations, and has not taken any pictures herself, so I shall have to go round and take a load of shots.

Stuart is pictured just before going to his school disco. It was an 80’s theme night, so he went as a Beatle! His rabbit lives on, though it did escape for a few hours when we had a BBQ for some friends a few weeks back. Fortunately it came back to food and the safety of its hutch when the party had finished.

Paddy is shown waiting for his food. He was quite hungry. He has spent today back at Action world in Paihia swinging about like a monkey. He has a couple of friends round tonight and they are currently making a bivvy tent in the back garden.

Eric is still wearing the mouth metal, and will be doing so for another 18 months. He went on school camp to Houhora Heads again, camping and swimming and fishing. It seemed to go well. He has spent the day helping me dispatch the pig. It took quite a while compared to a sheep. Eric shot it with his .22 and then we heaved it up to the back garden where we put it in an old bath with a fire underneath to loosen the skin and bristles. Once these were off we hung it off the clothes line and removed its guts, lungs and heart. Then we hung it up in the shed covered in wet muslin to set overnight. We will get up at dawn tomorrow while it is still cool and cut it up. We will have a go at making some bacon from the belly flaps. The rest will go into roasts, ribs and random bits of meat. The head and trotters will get boiled up and turned into brawn. We had the liver for tea – very tender. The lungs and heart will be duly be dissected at school.

We did have 2 pigs; the other one has gone to live at Debby’s small-holding until it is a lot bigger. I have to say that I am relieved that they are gone. They are funny animals in a way that I cannot quite put my finger on. Much more demanding than sheep. If they don’t get what they need they squeal loudly. If they are scared they scream so loud that it is painful to listen to them. In fact they do seem not far removed from humans in some ways. I was spending a large proportion of my veg and animal time each day tending to their needs, so it will free up a lot of my time now that they have gone.

The chicks are a bit of good news. They prove that Sidney the expensive rooster from Russell is not in fact infertile as we were starting to think. Their hatching on Wednesday has saved Sidders from the slow-cooker.

Lets see if I can get this on the blog.