I case you were wondering about the italic words enclosed in square brackets in the New Zealand travelogue, these words were contributed by my travel companion Sheamus O'Hara (or Seamus O'Reilly to the Irish). Sheamus was the only one who came with me to New Zealand when nobody else would. I adopted the 12 year old from Inis Bigil last July and since then he has been living with me. Although I care for him and tolerate his disrespect I sometimes cannot help not using him as my personal slave.

In this picture Sheamus is sitting in the hostel's kitchen drinking a cuppa after he finished writing a card to his Latvian missus (the one he met at the Latvian Embassy in Dublin). On his left hand side there's Linda the sheep he saved from the fury of the yellow rubber duckling. The two were entangled in a death match on the stern of the cruise boat at Milford Sound until Sheamus swiped away the duckling and saved Linda. As a sign of her gratitude, Linda vowed to accompany Sheamus for the rest of the trip hoping to find a way to repay her dues.