Reporter’s diary

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Two of us PRISCILLA, meet Shelley, but try not to chew her ears. When a Christchurch family brought an orphaned opossum baby home from near Springs Junction this month, they knew straight away they had a handful. Then, about a week ago, they found a baby rabbit in the swimming pool and fished her out. She seemed also to lack a family, so they took her in and waited to see how the animals would get along. At first, they were not too keen on each other. Priscilla, the opossum, latched on to one of the rabbit’s ears, and Shelley, the rabbit, was not too impressed. Later, she got her own back. She visited the opossum’s box and left behind a wet reminder. Priscilla rides wrapped around her human mother’s arms as the housework is being done. Her needle-sharp claws had to be clipped by a vet to make that a comfortable experience for the mother. Shelley is more docile, and thriving on a diet of thistles, lettuce and carrots. The family is all too aware of the old saying that things come in threes. Two hedgehogs have been fished out of the pool also, but there was no attempt to keep them as pets. The two already ensconced in the house take up enough time. Priscilla still has to be nursed to sleep. Cecil’s story THE SAD story of Percy, the pet magpie that was

found dead under a tree in the Addington backyard of its owners, has had a happy epilogue. A Hoon Hay woman had a magpie, only a few months old, that suffered a broken wing after it fell out of a tree. She already had an older bird and wanted to offer the youngster to the Addington family. The offer was accepted, and Cecil, the young magpie, is fitting right in to family life. It runs loose in the yard and even lines up for a meal with the dog and two cats. Cecil was named by her rescuer after Cecil Devine, the trotting trainer. Lights on HAVING your car headlights on during the day may be a rarity in New Zealand, but a man who has just returned from Australia says it is a-com-mon sight there. He : saw

Adding to the family. See “Two of us.”

many cars with lights on and asked about it. He was told that drivers from Victoria keep their lights on all day, especially when they are travelling outside the State. He was told that new Volvo cars have their lights connected to the ignition so they come on automatically when the car is started. A car dealer in Christchurch said that Swedish-built Volvos have park lights that come on automatically. Most people who bought the cars wanted the device disconnected because it only led to being blinked at by other drivers, and the disconnection was done for them. No work had to be done on Dutchbuilt Volvos, which do not have the connection. Moon bump MOUNT Kilimanjaro, the magnificent mass of stone

and ice in Tanzania, is well known to most of us through photographs and stories of the African wilds. Voyager 2, leaving the vicinity of the remote planet Uranus, has photographed a mountain on a Uranian moon that is almost the same height as the African mountain. In our international page photograph on Monday, the mountain can be seen in profile as a small bump near the underside of the rim of Oberon. Invitations

OUR Timaru reporter said that some Timaru residents are a little annoyed with the reason given for being declined tickets to the Royal garden party in Christchurch on March 1. Their names were not included in the ballot because only residents of Canterbury were considered. That region has the Rakaia River as

its southern boundary. John Gray, the Christchurch Town Clerk, said that three letters were received from Timaru, and he was sorry to disappoint those applicants, but there had been from 40 to 50 letters from other parts of the South Island including South Canterbury. The City Council even had some letters from people in Auckland who would be in Christchurch when the Royal party was here and wanted a chance to join the Botanic Gardens party. The City Council had 1230 names in the ballot, all people within the Canterbury region, and 615 of them will be able to join the Royal garden party. The other 615 people are being sent two tickets to the other Royal function that day, the youth in action day at Queen Elizabeth II Park. Presentation

A NEW ZEALAND Army officer serving with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force for a year in the Middle East has been in Jerusalem this week for a special medal parade and presentation to a general who is transferring from the force. Captain Randall Thomson, from Wellington, is married to a Christchurch woman, the former Michelle Greig. He and his wife spent six months in Lebanon, and are spending the second six months of his tour of duty in Damascus. An officer from each nation in the force was at the ceremony, and Captain Thomson represented New Zealand. Probing ON SATURDAY night, a rabbit shooter in the Lincoln area told the police that he had stumbled across what looked like a freshly-dug grave. The police investigated, scraping the surface of an area beside the Selwyn River, but a few scrapes showed that it was not such a grave matter after all. The farm owner said that Girl Guides had been camping there, and the dug-over patch was where they had had their latrine. —Stan Darting