Our waterfront scribe , the only one in North Australia , is convinced that we are in for a bumper wet season , based on strange encounters with frogs .
While about to hit the sack on a wet night , he checked to see if the tube of horse liniment for his troublesome , musical knees was on the ledge at the back of the bed. Reaching for the soothing tube, he received a start - a frog was peering enviously through the window at the liniment ! Do frogs suffer from rheumatoid arthritis ? All that frog kicking in cold ponds probably plays havoc with your joints . The liniment is the same kind endorsed and used by the Queen of the Jungle .
Then the frog proceeded to climb about the window like a drunken sailor, making its way up to the roof . An indication that there was going to be one helluva downpour overnight ?
The reporter decided to check the backyard and all the utensils catching rainwater before hopping back into bed . As he came in the kitchen door he caught sight out of the corner of his wonky eye of what he thought was a cockroach , and was about to give it a painful karate chop , when he realised it was another frog.
It was rapidly climbing up the wall - another indication of looming inundation ? The next day , after heavy overnight rain , the Shipping Reporter again exposed part of his body , this time his odd knees, at the Townsville University Hospital for x-rays . Despite the damage done to him by having been impaled by the tusk of an enraged narwhale many years ago , off Greenland , his legs were found to be okay .
Frogs , he said , continued to come at him from many angles-in an op shop on Magnetic Island there was a framed picture of one on a toilet bowl ; from Darwin came an email with a picture of two rude green tree frogs.
Because of the many bizarre stories he writes, we suspect he has water on the brain,
