News Hound Ady & Flo

Howdy, it's Flo Flotsam here. I've been jetsamming around with the bosses on assignment this week, chasing flotsam photos from my hometown to Bowentown.

(And let me just clarify, it's pronounced like Bow-wow'n town.)

First challenge of the mission, apart from getting a good seat on the boat, was to learn to ride a quad bike. Crikey, I've only just managed the family station wagon. Never mind, I soon sorted out the easy way to cruise the coastline, without having to figure the gearshift: Get Uncle Pete to drive.

Cruisin' with uncle Pete, with me navigating.

I got to sit on the handle bars and direct. Sure beats running along the beach. That's only good for a few miles, then commonsense takes hold and a dog has to ask: Why am I the only one running here?

Also while I was running alongside, I had to ask the question about Uncle Pete's quadbikes –when ‘quad' implies ‘four', why does one only have three wheels? Uncle Pete reckons it's an oldie, but a goodie.

We took a load of photos for the Sun and SunLive, with Mrs Boss getting really clever and beaming the photos back to the office from her perch on the back of the bike. What technology! Makes carrier pigeons redundant. Perhaps we could now eat them? Nek minute, someone will invent the self-biting postman. Or the slow running, clawless cat.

Anyway, I got a lot of exercise and fresh air, apart from the wafty smells of heavy fuel oil, dead sea critters and the regular dose of milk powder aroma. I know it says on the instructions to 'mix with water”, but I don't think Fonterra meant to add a whole ocean.

Personally I found the milk powder pretty tasty straight from the bag. Probably not good for my lithe figure, but sure was interesting to try.

The boss says we're not allowed to touch any of the stuff, but plenty of people have been picking it up. I can't say it's going to be a lot of use to anyone, and there sure wasn't much of a clean up happening otherwise.

I was very glad to come home to my dry, warm bed after a couple of days on assignment. I had a day in Doggy Day Care after that, which was meant to be recuperation, but it ended up a major party. More to come on that in future editions. Also the tale of my new Hidden Fence that Uncle Max from Collartron has installed. Now that really is clever technology – keeping me in. Although it doesn't seem to work the other way around, in keeping cats out.

Bring on invention of the clawless slow runner, I say.
Till next week, be careful out there, let's hope Rena rubbish doesn't trash our lovely coast too much more and good luck to the salvors. They've got a pretty tough game of fetch now that half of the bitch is under the water.