Saturday 24^th December

Merry Christmas to one and all…

And I so agree with Stephen Fry on Twitter, who is sick to death of all the Grumpy Old theme on TV…the latest being Grumpy Old Christmas: a whole lot of English people grumbling and whining away about the festive season.  Just shut up and enjoy it, he said.

2XS - Back in Australia we were once again treated to the night-time sound of the curlews, also known as Murder Birds, or Banshees.  They are lovely in the daytime, middle-sized, strange-looking wading birds, very tame and cheeky.  But at night-time…they make a sound worse than a brush-tail possum.  Shrieking and screaming, they fill the night with fear and dread.  From our marina berth in Townsville, we could hear party-time sounds from Jupiter’s Casino, just across the way.  I thought there were lots of girls having far too much fun; in fact - it was (mostly) the curlews, doing whatever curlews do at night which incites them to such cacophony.