No particularly big news this week, except for a bit of unlikely to be useful advice

LOCAL NEWS The scary toll of Easter wasn’t the road deaths, but that Countdown, one of the larger supermarket chains in New Zealand, sold 400 tonnes of chocolate eggs, 80 tonnes of bunnies, and 13 million hot cross buns. I had 2 so I guess I am under performing. Middlemore Hospital has been in the news for a while with building issues, leaky walls, leaky sewer pipes, leaky electricity, sounds like their buildings (the super clinic also) are crap. We seem to be well in to the new government and the old playing blame games. The Nats are being blamed for Middlemore, and the dodgy repair methods for houses in Christchurch, both of which seem pretty damn fair to be honest. Repaired houses in Christchurch are a very unattractive option for purchasers, worse than leaky homes, and very probably leaky as well. Meanwhile the government is planning an increase in fuel levies for public transport, mainly, and although the impact is likely to be comparatively low for many it has people hating it all. They reckon maybe $250 per year per car, which isn’t massive. My relatively low petrol consumption means I am not particularly bothered by it. I still think they should be taxing the internet. There was a story about concern for Pacific Island families struggling to fit in to new smaller houses. Good grief, if you can’t afford a large house then don’t have a large family. If you have a household with grandparents as well, or cousins, or whatever, then if everybody does their bit the cost should be lower for everyone. Stop your whining. The Warriors have almost provided compelling evidence for the parallel universe theory because they have won their first five games of this season. Bad weather is coming to New Zealand. I won’t see any of it with luck. WORLD NEWS Five elephants escaped from a truck on to a motorway after a crash in Spain. Fiji was evacuating people from a small island for a hurricane, well to avoid a hurricane. China and the US are grumpy with each other over tariffs while the Poms and Russians continue to squabble. The best New Zealand could do was say we couldn’t find any Russian spies, either way that doesn’t look very good. A bus crash in Canada was pretty serious, more than decimating a youth hockey team (given that decimation is by definition one in ten dying, and 14 died on the bus). There was a terrorist even involving a van driving in to a crowd in Muenster in Germany. They have a really cool tank museum there. Good thing the bad guys didn’t use a tank. MY SAD LIFE The Bambi walk on Wednesday was exceedingly weird due to the lack of Labrador involvement. We trekked from our house up to Mount Albert, I snuck food to a black Labrador boy we saw up there, just a biscuit. It was a good two hour walk. We tried to bamboozle Hannah on the return, which mostly failed. The dentist on Wednesday was okay, I guess, I am beginning to feel like a dental cyborg. I really won’t mind not going for a while. However, it has to be said I seem to have no anxiety about going, it’s become tres banal. I borrowed little Pia on Thursday morning for the GDP walk (she boarded with us for ten days a couple of months ago, she is eight months old now). She was quite happy to come with me, I took her on this walk when we had her, so not completely unfamiliar. There were only six dogs on the walk and five at the café, and they were really well behaved. One of the regulars, Ivan, is being withdrawn from the program which is quite a shame, Russ, Ivan’s puppy walker, is a nice guy, retired ex-cop. Thursday night was the final check and fiddle with the lights for the pre-ball on Saturday. I have a couple of parcels due to arrive next week, and I had to jump through hoops to authorise them to not require signatures. Such a mission. Fingers crossed they arrive, been waiting for these since June. Saturday morning I did Mt Eden, walking without the dog is really weird. The supermarket on Friday was so much easier without having to deal with her, but still felt weird. I could use the escalator, which doesn’t happen often. Saturday was a bit of a blur, getting myself ready for trip to Australia because I had to leave for the airport about 6:30am Sunday. We got to the Goodins a little early but I was all ready to go with the photos. I took around 2000 photos in about two hours. I had spare memory cards, a spare battery on charge, needed none of that. I don’t know how many people were there, it wasn’t as many as I said last week, which was something of an exaggeration, but it seemed like a lot. Diana helped out on the hospitality side with Sue and Amy. Thomas was sort of like the ambassador, but was also a bit of a photo whore until Lily finally arrived. Pippy was sensible and stayed out of the way for the most part, Tinky not quite so much. It was Brett’s birthday on Saturday, so I didn’t annoy him until Sunday. Then I really annoyed him. I going to annoy Jono on Thursday. We have heard nothing of Maddie and honestly I don’t expect to until close to when she’s released. We don’t even know is the whole mating thing is going to happen, I think it is likely given her lack of frequency but who knows. We may not hear anything until about 19th April. This coming week is a bit of a scary test for my French skills. Brett’s wife Madelaine speaks French properly, so I was feeling some pressure. I reckon I will have completed what I would call the first pass of the course I am doing within the next two to three weeks. I think talking with a native speaker could help once I get over the terror. The flight to Melbourne was interesting because the plane was piloting wifi so it was free, which is cool. I think they are planning on charging about $10 for it. It’s not real quick, in fact it is really damn slow, but it is enough for a few little things. I got a ton of work done on the flight. At the terminal, they took a male black lab past everyone and despite me not having dog biscuits in my pocket he was interested in me, so I got questioned then directed to an weird holding bay then got the third degree from a guy who I was beginning to think I may come to know as “Mr Jellyfinger”. I got all the questions about did I pack my bag myself and did I know the contents and so forth, I was starting to get a little nervous. I did point out that I had been in contact with an in season female dog, and that could explain the dog’s interest (it helped that I could back that theory up with Maddie’s ID card that said breeder on it). After emptying my laptop bag and suitcase (the suitcase part seemed unnecessary, given that the dog was interested when I hadn’t gone to baggage claim yet) they sent me on my way without having to remove my clothing. I have no clue what the dog was checking for. Sunday afternoon was pretty low key, I went for a walk with Brett which included a store of interest, and later we all went to a Thai place for dinner. Work is mental. Also, a tool I rely on decided to die and I have no idea how to fix it, works fine on my desktop but laptop is knackered and I have to decide if I can wing it without it this week. Do I feel lucky? Madelaine learned that a Prince can make a Princess but the converse is not true (like the progeny of Prince Andrew compared to Princess Anne). ERRORS AND OMISSIONS Apparently I mentioned the ornithologist twice. Saves me mentioning him this week. I failed to mention the real reason for going to see Bambi, apart from the rabbits and the tripods, was to take out a piece of pipe for the bunnies to play in. I left that at home. I also failed to mention how quickly the neighbourhood cats moved in when Maddie disappeared. Diana saw Chops chasing birds on Monday morning on our back lawn. Saw him again on Saturday. Have a good week. I expect Diana’s will be peaceful. Rob PS The advice? Well, that’s basically this: you never know when your pants might smell like an in-season dog (but now you know a way to find out).