I'll Have to do Without a New Zealand Correspondent for a While

I stared at my New Zealand correspondent in astonishment. 

"You want a week off?" I asked.  He squirmed under my steely gaze and toyed nervously with a nearby sheep.

"I know its a lot to ask," he said, well, sheepishly.

"Oh it isn't that," I responded.  "I just didn't know you still worked for me."

It has to be said that news from the Land of the Long White Fleece has been thin on the ground of late.  A certain amount of that can be put down to the fact that, well, its New Zealand but there also seemed to be certain lack of dedication on the part of my correspondent.  I had pretty much given up on the possibility of ever hearing from him again. 

However where there's a sheep there's a way or so my tech support assured me.  I'm not exactly certain what they did or how sheep were involved but I now have access to pretty much every message and phone call made in New Zealand.  I was a little concerned at the security breach of what was after all a friendly nation's top secret communications until my tech support invited me to read some of them.  There really isn't very much going on over there.

Suffice it to say that wherever there is a sheep in New Zealand my tech support are staring out of its eyes.  And the fleecy jackets and lamb dinners go down a treat in Minsk when served with potatoes and diesel laced vodka.  But back to my correspondent.

"Why," I enquired in tones of sweet reason, "do you require a week off?"

The stumbling, tear laced response was a little incoherent but I got the impression that he had been touched with a burning ambition and that this might be the last chance for him to follow his dream.  Suitably impressed I asked for details.  He told me he was running a merchandise stall at a country show.  This is apparently what ambition looks like in New Zealand.  I shushed my tech support who were giggling uncontrollably (the diesel laced vodka may have had something to do with that) and asked for more details.  The whole sorry story soon came tumbling out.

My correspondent has a father in law; there's nothing unusual in that, I used to have one myself (Hi Herry).  This particular father in law, however, makes a living by sticking things on to the end of cows to enable calves to suckle more effectively.  To be more accurate he makes the things that others stick on to the ends of cows to enable calves to suckle more effectively.  I can't help wondering how cows actually managed to survive before we domesticated them and stuck things onto them so that their children wouldn't starve to death.

This product is called Peach Teats and it is apparently a significant player in the helping baby cows to suckle more effectively industry.  Next week New Zealand is holding a gathering of all things rural (pretty much the entire country) where farmers and those who service them come together to impress each other with such things as how efficiently their baby calves are suckling.  My correspondent's father in law has a stall (or possibly a pavilion) there and my correspondent has been roped in to helping out.  My correspondent trained as a lawyer and currently engages in risk analysis as a hobby.  Possibly for this reason he isn't actually expected to attach teats to cows or anything technical like that.  Rather he is selling promotional t-shirts and handing out appropriately themed sweets (that sound you hear is my mind boggling).  It's rather like the merchandise stalls outside a rock concert, except for the rock concert part.

So for the next week my correspondent is going to be hawking t-shirts with the words "Peach Teats" emblazoned on them.  At this point words failed me and my tech support collapsed in hysterics.  There was little I could do except wish him luck and ask if he could send me a peach flavoured sweet.  Unfortunately the last time he tried to send them to Australia they were destroyed in a controlled demolition by the Australian Federal Police at the airport.