Those fish and chips must have been truly foul to be throw-away-able; and he must have been truly hungry to wolf them down.

This brings to mind my experience with a beggar in Nairobi, who hassled me to the point where I ended up peeling the socks off my feet and offering them to him, which he took, happily. Later the same day, I saw him again: he waved and pointed to his feet, sporting my socks!

Colder than Climping beach, in freezing January? That I find hard to believe. For the rest, thank God for helms!

How about drinking just water for a few days? Or even a few weeks?

I’m beginning to suspect that text I got mid afternoon our time wasn’t delayed but simply reflected your normal operating hours!

That water melon story, Geoff, reminds me of a begger on a train in Sri Lanka. I was eating a banana at the time and he was gesturing towards his mouth. I was a bit fed up so I gave him my banana skin, thinking that would get rid of him. He proceeded to scrape at and eat the inside of it – if you’ve ever tried this you’ll know how incredibly bitter it is.

He would have been much more justified throwing it at me than your water melon man!

Forget Thailand. Get yourself to KK soonest and start plucking – that’s the only thing that will stop the cash haemorrhaging away.

This just arrived from a hostel in Kerikeri, in reply to an email sent before you left here:

“Sorry it took so long to reply, the rate is $18.00 per night in a dorm or $86.00 per week. A single room is $100.00 per week. The kiwifruit season is under way in about 1 week, please reply if you want to come up, regards Michelle”

Forget Thailand, for the moment; think Kerikeri … or was it just an April fool jest???