We have sighted our first snake here, so at last we feel like true blue sub-tropicals! It was a little olive snake, apparently a whip snake, going from one rocky area to another. It was very pretty.
We have also wrestled with a rat plague since we got back--obviously--when the cat's away---.None left now, I hope.
The days go on being hot and shining, not a sign of a rain drop. And Tony Abbott and That mad Nick Minchin say there is no climate change. The locals cant believe how dry it is. In spite of that, the bananas look good. Amazing what a weekly bucket of water will do.
Our four baby butchies are growing up, very adolescent though. They can still put on a "Feed me Mummy squawk if an adult is silly enough to sit near them. Still they are learning to be lovely singers.

here we are--returned from our amazing time in Shanghai. What an experience! Such a different culture from ours, and so enjoyable. A number ofaspects stand out, --Shanghai is a modern, up-to-date city, with some of the tallest buildings in the world, and at the same time the dominant mode of transport is the bike, either push bike or motor scooter, where people do the most menial jobs, with dignity, and where much life is lived on the streets, and yet there is a completely efficient metro, which even I could use easily. I particularly loved the organic feel of life-- I could buy all my food on the street, get a bike tyre mended on the pavement ( if i had a bike!), buy an SD card for almost nothing from a hole-in- the -wall shop whose primary clientele consisted of workmen from building sites, looking for a fag and a drink. It was also incredibly cold, and yet the city was full of roadside gardens, some planted with petunias, which, James says, are replaced each week, and where Topiary was elevated to an art form. Buildings would be pulled down overnight, and new ones built almost as quickly. And everywhere street sweepers-- with fresh brooms made each day from aboo pole and some willow branches, or bamboo leaves. The enclosed pictures show a tiny glimpse of life there. One pic is taken from James lounge, looking over the Pu river, which has one of the world's big ports at its mouth.