Ducks, dogs and Australia Day
Hi All…welcome back.
I’m going to start this one off with something a bit out of the ordinary.
My wife Michelle is a keen beachcomber. Usually she is on the hunt for sea glass…or driftwood…or shells…or whatever flotsam and jetsam that suits her crafting of the moment. Recently, she headed off in search of sea urchins (like I said, whatever floats her boat). The search was fruitless, but she did return with something a little unusual…a rubber duck!
The little duck is in pretty good condition and has what looks like a ‘number 1’ on its side. My theory is that he/she is an escapee from an Australia Day duck race (they usually don’t let them roam free). However, due to covid, there hasn’t been a race locally in a couple of years. So this little dude has potentially been bobbing around for quite some time.
An interesting fact bobbed up while checking on rubber ducks…in 1992 a cargo ship lost 28,000 of the little suckers overboard in the North Pacific. Ocean currents being what they are, rubber ducks were being washed up all over the globe. In fact, they used the info on where they turned up to enhance our knowledge of the world’s currents.
If you want to know more there is a book called ‘Moby Duck’ by Donovan Hohn who traced the quackers 13 years after the event.
Australia Day this year saw me working for Waratah-Wynyard Council and Somerset Rotary Club to cover the award ceremony, Aussie breakfast and family fun day. A great little event that went ahead when lots of others were canned due to covid.
Well done to all concerned.
Some of you will be aware that our dog Ernie had a mishap. He required stitches and the indignity of a cone. Well, Ernie being Ernie, when it came time for them to be removed it was discovered he hadn’t healed properly. So, he was stapled up and the cone reinstated for another 10 days (much to his disgust). He was due to have the staples out on Friday…but (despite sleeping for about 90% of every day) he somehow managed to pop some staples and open up the wound again. So poor Ernie has had to be restitched, is back on medication, and has another 10 days of the cone. At least he isn’t running into as many objects as he was a couple of weeks ago.
For those of you who might be interested…I set myself a little challenge at the start of the year to post a picture to Instagram ggtakespics every day (if you are not on Insta the pics are also shared on facebook). There is no special theme or reason…just something I find visually interesting. In fact, I don’t think I move far from the breakfast table for the first half-dozen or so. It’s pretty amazing what we have around us that we just don’t ‘see’.
Until next time…cheers!