Insectile armageddon.

In slightly happier news, it was my birthday yesterday and I've now reached the ripe old age of 29. (Although arguably, the first clause in that sentence should be revised.) The household was sluggish at best after Chris' stag/buck's do the night before, and that suited me fine. We ate some freshly laid eggs for breakfast* and once the menfolk were up and about, we headed over to the park across the road to throw a rugby ball around for a while and otherwise bask in the afternoon sun.

After some dinner, Neil and I trotted back out to lob the ball back and forth during a pastoral ramble through the desiccated woods that dotted the park. We saw wild bush turkeys pecking for insects (a suicidal eating habit if ever there was one); kookaburras darting through the trees and web upon web of indeterminate spiders. Neil walked into one. There was swearing.

Australia, it appears, is a veritable zoo of fanged, taloned and poison-spewing minifauna. "Watch out for redback spiders," we were warned. "Their venom causes you to swell up until you explode all over the place. And then your corpse melts."

Neil told a story of a wolf spider that crawled onto a friend's shoulder. "It was the size of his hand. It's not poisonous but it would tear your arm off as soon as look at it. They could only kill it by tying it between two pick-ups and ripping it in two."

And the ants! The ants have reached Phase IV down here. "And then you have the fire ant. It's deadly to all other ants. It can breathe fire, you see. And it teleports inside your brain to eat it from the inside out."

* "Ach, I think I'm egged out. I'll give them a miss."
"Are you sure? Eggs are a known appetite suppressant."
"So is all other food!"