Saturday morning.

Mutterings continued.

Shopped (bought an exciting new ironing board and a sausage roll maker), cleaned, vacuumed, washed the floors, etc. This afternoon I'll visit Dad in hospital and make some muffins for tonight's visitors.

As I was walking out to the car this morning I saw a raven stroll by with what looked like a Cheezle in its beak. I then noticed a parliament of its brethren across the road gathered around a mound of Cheezles that had fallen out of a bag. Something to add to the corvid husbandry manual.

Sweet: "Tsunami hippo finds new 'mum'
January 8, 2005

A BABY hippopotamus, swept into the Indian Ocean by the tsunami, is finally coming out of his shell thanks to the love of a 120-year-old tortoise.

Owen, a 300kg, one-year-old hippo, was swept down the Sabaki River, into the ocean and then back to shore when the giant waves struck the Kenyan coast.

The dehydrated hippo was found by wildlife rangers and taken to the Haller Park animal facility in the port city of Mombasa.

Pining for his lost mother, Owen quickly befriended a giant male Aldabran tortoise named Mzee - Swahili for "old man".

Haller Park ecologist Paula Kahumbu said the pair were now inseparable.

<>"It is incredible. A hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a mother," Ms Kahumbu said. "The hippo follows the tortoise the way it follows its mother.

"The hippo was left at a very tender age. Hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years."

Officials are hopeful Owen will befriend a female hippo called Cleo, also a resident at the park."

The Y2K bug finally hits: "Baby accused of theft

A Romanian mayor was shocked when he was asked to investigate a baby accused of theft.

Mayor Ionel Naftanaila, from Albestii de Muscel, Arges county, received the official request from police.

It asked him to help with inquiries into theft allegations involving someone born on February 27, 2004.

The mayor said: "I had a big surprise when I received the piece of paper and at first I didn't know what to believe.

"It was an official document with everything and by which I was being asked to make a social investigation and help police. It was really funny too."

Eventually it turned out the police had written the wrong year on the letter and the suspect was born in 1972, not 2004."