Here are some more photographs of life on the other side of the planet (other side from me, anyway). The comments are from our own correspondent, Siganus Sutor.
A bunch of young tendraks that I photographed about two years ago in the Black River gorgesIn 2006 there was a seal that decided to spend some time ashore on the west coast. People went quite wild about it. (I don’t think that a seal had ever been seen on a beach in Mauritius before.)
There are also some monstrous creatures that “grow” in our garden…
…and which the dog loves to attack.
Finally, Sig sent a picture of a snail to which I’ve added one of his local goats, for scale. They’re the biggest snails I’ve ever seen. We can ask Dearieme, but I’d imagine a family of Scotspersons could dine on one of these for a week (roast snail, cold roast snail, snail sandwiches, etc.)
A Bad Guide 
I love those monsters, they look like Picasso sculptures. What the hell are they? At first I thought Engineer Sutor had made them out of rebars, but they taper towards the tips, so they must be natural.
I can’t do the tiny hedgehog things justice — the tendraks — they need to be in a much more blown-up picture. When I open them in Photoshop, you can really see them. Here they look more like caterpillars.
comments are from our own correspondent
It sounds as if it’s been aired on the BBC…
Here they look more like caterpillars
That’s what they looked like in situ anyway. It reminded me of some kind of shoal of fish. It was a bit dark under the bush and they were constantly moving.
a seal that decided to spend some time on ashore on the west coast
This was a typo left from changing “on the shore” into “ashore”. Now I wonder if one can just “spend time on”. Not spend time on the computer or on the beach, just spend time on. Maybe in places like Mexico? Hmmm?
The monster is the remains of a cluster of flowers and fruits that grow on a palm tree. (Incidentally these fruits too are eaten by the bats.) When the whole thing is dry it falls to the ground, where it is attacked by the dog who finishes them off. We managed to save this one, but only for a limited time.
I saw the tendraks were 500 pixels wide but when I clicked on them nothing happened. There are several linking options for images and one of them will let you link to the uploaded image no matter how big it is.
Yes, I thought they were caterpillars at first until I saw the eyes. They know how to pick the right rock.
The monster, now that I know what it is, reminds me of how dates are sometimes sold in the Middle Eastern suqs.
I’m afraid the snail still looks the size of my thumb. I just can’t think of a snail any other way. The concrete is quite nice though.
Shouldn’t the goat have its own picture since this is a goat blog?
It will. I have a lot of material here.
When I was young ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ was from exotic places like Mauritius, and I wished I wasn’t stuck in London. So I changed all that and now I’m stuck in Norway, spending time on and looking after goats.