If you see me wandering the streets this week in a neckbrace, it'll be due to the ridiculously large buzzards that I've been expected to retrieve recently.
Now I know my second name is Labrador, but I'm going to talk to the Retriever's Union about the unreasonably large quarry that the boss and his apprentice have been dropping from the skies lately.

The Job Description clearly states 'bird and small game” and nowhere in the fine print do I see that I am expected to swim through icy cold, nemo-infested waters to bring back to shore a bird the size of a pterodactyl with an eating disorder. I refer to the Canada geese which have been blasted from the sky.
Now I can handle things the size of ducks, magpie, and my specialty subject, possums. I've even been known to intercept hotdogs in the air after they've been dropped by small children. But these honking Canadian DC3s are right off the scale of manageable targets.
My idea of the perfect retrieving day starts at a leisurely hour, say after 10am and after a hearty breakfast and a morning tea snack. Then the shooters drop a small animal, say no larger than a size six chicken, but preferably the weight of an anorexic canary, conveniently in front of me on dry, flat manicured lawn, whereby I can pick it up, carry about three metres, deposit it at the boss's feet to earn a lot of praise, and hopefully a sumptuous lunch.
Reality: The boss gets me up at 5.15am in the dark and cold, makes me sit quietly in a boat and then a maimai the size of a letterbox (with no Sky TV) for hours. I have to listen to their drivel about politics, Madonna's thighs, the state of provincial rugby, The TV3 weathergirl and how many ways they're going to cook duck.
Then they shoot a thing the size of a flying ostrich mated with a jumbo jet, which lands on the other side of the river in quicksand. It makes a crater in the mud the size of a medium pacific atoll. Realistically you'd need one of Curly McLeod's cranes and a barge and derrick for the salvage operation. If this bird had flown into Tauranga Airport it would have been charged for excess weight baggage.
But they expect me to go out – alone – in the swamp-infested everglades, pick it up and swim back across treacherous waters with crabs and things, back up to the shore. Are they completely mad?
Well I somehow managed the first one, though for some of the journey I had to drag it backwards and engage Low Ratio Four Paw Drive, but we got there.
I did get a rousing pat and a schmacko, but next time boys, stick to the lower end of the air traffic scale. Spare a thought for those you expect to somehow bring the jolly thing back after you've filled it with so much steel it will need to be sent to Metal Man for recycling.
I hear sparrow is nice on a skewer. I could probably manage two at a time. And I hear they're OSH and ACC approved.

Bacon and egg quiche

Ingredients
400g savoury pastry
3 rashers bacon, roughly chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 eggs
3/4 cup cheddar cheese, grated
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Method
Roll pastry out to half a centimetre thickness and use it to line the sides and base of a 20cm quiche dish. Place in the freezer for 15 minutes. Bake blind at 200C for 15 minutes. Remove baking blind material and bake a further 10 minutes. Cook bacon and onion in a frying pan over a medium heat until onion has softened. Beat eggs, cheese, milk, salt and pepper together. Stir in bacon and onion. Pour mixture into pastry case. Bake at 180C for 30 to 35 minutes or until set.