Mr Blobby is alive and well in Aitutaki

Yes, it is true.  A 3am this morning, Mr Blobby (last seen on BBC’s Noel’s House party in the mid ‘90’s) was heard ‘blobbing’ through the garden, around the house and then heading off towards the beach.  More realistically, it was probably at rather large swine.  To be fair though, it did sound like a small elephant wearing meat-packers gumboots full of water and holding a pack of fighting felines.

(“blob-blob-squalsh-squalsh-squeal-squeal”  ~ say it all together now!)

After eventually listening to it squealing along the beach and dropping back off to sleep, we awoke this morning to seeing another large swine in the garden.  It may be the same swine, but certainly much quieter in the day light.  Seeing (it was plainly obvious) that it was a boar (though of the tuskless variety) I sent the brave husband out to shoo it off.  Loud noises weren’t very effective, and in fact served to attract the beastie towards by precious tomato plants.  A quick retreat up the stairs was called for and we left the ‘pig-watch’ to the kids who ran around the deck looking down and giving us status reports every 30 seconds.  Eventually he retreated to a wallow that has magically appeared in the lawn across the road.  He was last spotted trotting down the road.

To be fair, this morning’s visitor is probably a domestic pig that has escaped his leg rope.  Last night’s guest….I don’t know.  There was a very large scrub fire down the road yesterday afternoon, most likely lit by pig hunters looking at burning their prey out of the long grass - it was certainly the cause of the major scrub fire last year.  Though it started 100m down the road, in the hills above the beach, the wind drove the flames down the island and away from us.  We should note at this point that the fire brigade on the island consists of the fire engine at the airport (and if there is a flight due, then it can’t leave its station).  The land immediately inland from our house is pretty dense and known to be full of wild pigs.  In fast we saw a large black beastie across the road just last week, which was making a huge racket, and the boys who do the Fire Dance show at the resort said months ago that they were coming for a hunt.  So this morning we saw that the fire had burned through the long grasses for about 1km, approaching 3 houses on the way.  It didn’t do any major damage and while we did see the fire engine go past at dinner time, it returned past 15 min later.  Fire is used quite regularly to clear areas of scrub for planting, but this was right up there on the stupid-o-meter given it was on the top of the hill in 20knot winds.

<sigh> This place is crazy sometimes! Blobby, blobby, blobby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!