Bah, Humbug!

And what a Christmas it was! Despite the bucketing rain (we're up to day five with no respite today), the team and animals had a lovely time and ate to the point of sleeping, then woke up and did it all again. The roast here on Christmas eve was hectic, and only two hours late after I got distracted and forgot to put the chook in the oven... But tasted all the better for the wait :-) The Secret Santa ended with some pretty neat fun toys that will be well utilised as soon as the sun comes back!

On Christmas day we headed up to Ngatipa to have a lovely BBQ with the NZ High Commissioner and his lovely wife Leoni, as well as a bunch of other family-less ex-pats from the Hash House Harriers. The swimming pool was well utilised, the beer fridge well emptied and of course we are still eating the left overs that they donated to the poor starving Esther Honeys!

The kittens were given a lovely pressie also (but don't tell Gregg!); we turned the living room into a kitten club for the morning and had twenty odd babies of all shapes and sizes having a proper kitten party attacking home made toys, trees and toes. Every one - spectators and kittens alike - had heaps of fun and you can see the mayhem in the photos!

With the rain, the clinic is slow on consults but jam packed with in-patients. Not a single cage is free, with fish poisoning, broken legs, wounds, hypothermic goats, strays and boarders (plus four babies piglets who wont feed), so the poor team is getting soaked twice a day feeding and cleaning. Add the fact that no locals can bring in their animals in this weather so we have to go to them, we have had some rather fun treks through muddy sludge... Top it all off with a dead car battery in the middle of a tropical storm, and you have a pretty stressful end of year!

But may 2012 be just as successful and even more fun here at Esther Honey! Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIFB0h6O68k&feature=youtu.be for a summary of 2011 in photos!