You've just got to love butchers, don’t you? They must be the happiest, friendliest professionals in town - always up for a joke, always delighted to oblige and full of witty banter.

Butchers never seem grumpy. What is it that makes them so chirpy? The poor buggers come into work hours before the sun rises when the rest of us are snugly tucked up in our beds. 

They work all day with sharp knives, sheep guts, blood, dead meat and often fussy customers, yet they are unfailingly pleasant with a wicked sense of humour and ready smile.  

“I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian,” said a sign I saw in a butcher shop last year.

Then at a Canberra butchery, a message on the tee-shirts the butchers were wearing said, "I love vegetarian food."

Odd I thought, particularly when two butchers were cooking a sausage sizzle for customers. Then I read the fine print under the message......"it goes so well with steak."

Over the years I've spotted lots of playful signs in butcher shops.  

Signs like: Everyday thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence. Eat meat.

Another proclaimed: All animals are created equal, some just taste better than others.

In Belfast there was a lovely mural painted on the wall of a butcher shop with pictures of pigs, ducks, sheep, cows, pheasants and more.  Underneath was the caption - There is a place for all God's creatures. Right next to the potatoes and gravy.

WHICH brings me to the chimney sweep cleaning out our fire last week.

He was pretty happy because he was off to New Zealand to house-sit for a friend.  

"So what?" you say. "What is so special about that?"  

Well, what if I told you the house owned by his friend was actually a luxury apartment on a cruise ship, which has been continually circumnavigating the world since it was launched in 2002?

There are 165 privately owned residences that make up this floating apartment block. Each apartment is stocked with their clothes, books and personal possessions. There are restaurants or you can cook in your own kitchen after shopping at the ship's market or delicatessen.  

This ship anchors at port for a few days then moves on to a different city, or a different country. Imagine waking up and having morning coffee on your balcony to a new landscape every day. How the other half live, eh! No wonder our chimney sweep was excited.  

NOW Dudley, who was walking home when he stopped at the hardware shop and bought a bucket and a tin of paint. He then stopped by the produce store and picked up a couple of chooks and a goose. While he was figuring out how he was going to carry all that stuff he was approached by a little old lady who told him she was lost.

"No worries, I'll walk you home, "said Dudley, "however I am not sure I can manage to carry all this lot too."

"Why don't you put the can of paint in the bucket. Carry the bucket in one hand, put a chicken under each arm and carry the goose in your other hand?" suggested the old lady, and away they went.

"Let's take my short cut and go down this alley," suggested Dudley.

"How do I know that when we get in the alley you won't hold me up against the wall, and have your way with me?"

"Bloody hell, dear. I'm carrying a bucket, a tin of paint, two chooks, and a goose," said Dudley. "How in the world could I possibly hold you up against the wall and do that as well?"

The old girl didn't hesitate.

"Put the goose down, cover him with the bucket, put the paint on top of the bucket, and I'll hold the chooks".