The red flag flying there.

No, before you even ask. THERE ARE NO PHOTOGRAPHS. I'm not that tired of life. When, like me you've been married for a long time to a woman of strong will (she has to be, she's still married to me) and arm (she has to have. She has a strong will and she's married to me, and I do daft things. 'Anything I can do she can do better (I can do better than you :-))'. This includes use a chainsaw - do you understand 'respect and no photographs' fully now? Do you understand my favourite character in Rats, Bats an Vats better now? If you haven't read it, you should. It's available at the Baen Free Library.)

What's all this about then? Well, it's our dogs and cats, but mostly the dogs. We suddenly realised this morning that 1)Paddy is as sick as a horse, and needed to go to the doctor (done and on antibiotics) -- he's got his mother's AND my obstinacy. getting this done was no small feat. 2) The Doggins get out of quarantine on Monday. And we haven't sorted out the fence yet. I've been too busy with the book. So B and I went on a very expensive mission to Elders to buy a gate and wire and posts (there is a 20 foot section that needs fencing and a gate, where the driveway comes in.)The one downside is our double-cab ute does not have a very long bin, and we wanted a 12 foot gate - which protruded. We tied it in place safely. So the youngster at Elders says 'have you got something to tie on the back? Which of course we didn't have. And our local police have been stopping cars at the intersection going out of town.

But B is wearing red trousers. So she says "Is there a law that says you have to wear pants when driving?"

The youngster's jaw gets gravel rash. I think he'd never quite dealt with luntatics like these South Africans anyway... "Er. No."

"Good," says B, and gets into the cab. The youth gets the picture... well the idea anyway, and disappears with terrifying speed. I know better than to argue, collect bright red cords and give B my jacket as a sort of skirt. Attach trousers firmly to the gate, and we trundle the couple of klicks home in the blue slug (a nudibranch for those of you who get Zoological jokes), not meeting any black-and-white uniformed folk, unless you count the Magpies. They always make that laughing noise.

And B and her trousers are re-united and James and I dig the new hole to the centre of the earth - or close anyway. Little fellows in red pyjamas kept climbing out of the hole. If they'd showed up earlier we could have hung them on the gate.

Some small fiendish part of me does however have this mental image of the large cop from Lady Barron first leaning into the driver's window, and then saying "would you mind getting out of the car?"