Results of the ‘Write a caption’ competition. Entrants were . . . 2 (Two! Not two thousand, Not two hundred. Not twenty two. One and one. Two). I suppose it reflects the attractive power of our blog. Anyway, a big thank you to our two industrious and talented contestants who submitted excellent captions. I couldn’t separate between the two of you. Half a carrier bag is winging its way to each of you now. You lucky people. And now, swiftly glossing over our disastrous start to audience participation, we move on to…

Pets’ corner!

A new section aimed at bringing you up to date with the fauna currently camping on our front doorstep. Literally.

‘Gobbler’

You’ve already met ‘Gobbler’aka ‘El Bastardo’. Also known as, ‘old yella’ eye’.

‘Son of gobbler’

Also known as, ‘Das Schwarze Schwein’.

‘Tribe of Gobbler’

Gobbler is busy working on ‘Nation of Gobbler’. Mostly around 6.30 in the morning judging from the noise he makes, the horny little sod. As we head into work we’ll usually see ‘Das Schwarze Schwein’ trying to pick off female stragglers before ‘old yella eye’ spots him.

‘Ermintrude’

Gentlest cow I’ve ever seen. Lovely soft pelt, Big dewy eyes. She lets the kids stroke her. Due for the knackers yard this autumn. We’ve ordered a big shank of prime beef from Ermintrude’s left leg. Could be her right leg. I forget.

‘Lizard boy’

A loner. Difficult to approach.

NO PICTURE AVAILABLE

‘Ant’ and ‘Dec’ the bush babies. They only come out at night so all you ever see are two huge pairs of round, red eyes caught in the torch light, madly bouncing and tumbling around the mosque roof opposite us, emitting their ‘We’re on speed! We’re on speed!’ cackles. I’m trying to entice them into the backyard with over ripe bananas. I haven’t told Nadine it’s to capture one of them, leash him and train him up for tourist photos in Stone Town. I’ll make a fortune.

‘Slim’ the egret.

Hangs around in the morning with the gardener waiting for juicy morsels to be dug up. Either that or he fancies the gardener.

‘Rude Boy’ Raven

A disrespecter of everything. He lurks around the bins with his mates waiting for chucked out food. He usually manages to up-end the bins too and then brings his catch to our (tin) roof and proceeds to make as much noise as possible while dismembering it and spitting it out all over our backyard. I thought our kid was a noisy, messy eater. Rude Boy just about has the pinch on him.

‘Billy whizz’ the sun bird

‘Billy whizz’ isn’t actually part of our household menagerie but a friend’s down the road. Daft as a brush. Thinks his reflection in the window is some other sun bird and spends hours doing his mating dance and trying to get off with it. So a gay, daft sun bird.

‘Lotta Goo’ the snail

Huge and slavvery. Spends her (no, I haven’t checked. ‘her’ is literary licence) time slithering around the confines of our small backyard plot of dirt eating snail food which judging by the size of her includes small children and stray cats. I just wish it included ravens. She also produces frightening amounts of slime. We’re  trying to make a garden but all it appears to be doing at the moment is glisten from the layers of guck Lotta lays down.

No name, just terrifyingly efficient.

Ants. The above is about the size of a football and was produced within a morning in our back yard garden. What with Lotta’s slime and these lot, it’s amazing we manage to grow anything.

‘Pinky and Perky’

They usually pitch up around 7 in the morning wanting scraps off the breakfast table. They bang their chins of the roof if we’re late. Another bloody racket to add to the long list in the morning.

NO PICTURE AVAILABLE (THANKFULLY)

There’s also something at night that we’re not too sure of. Whenever it starts, all the other noises stop. It sounds like a cat screaming, changes to the sound of something being throttled and then turns to a staccato hooting followed by soft crunching. Whenever we ask people what it is they just smile and walk away? We’ve agreed that the next time it happens Nadine will go out and investigate.

Editor’s note: We have discovered that one of the above entries is a red herring. We shall leave it to you to work out which.