Happy birthday Micah and happy anniversary to Pundit

A warm greeting to all in the Pundit community,

Just a brief not to let you know that last Tuesday, March 24, at 4.26pm, Eleanor gave birth to Micah Donald Arthur Watkin, 7lb 9 oz. The middle names are down to Eleanor's late father and a great-grandfather on the Watkin side who brought our branch of the Watkin family to New Zealand. We're delighted and exhausted first-time parents.

If you've been wondering what happened to the news briefs, blame Micah! The World New Briefs will begin again tomorrow, but the National News Briefs will go on sabbatical for a month or two while we deal with this new life.

Otherwise it will be business as usual. But if we have the odd off day, you know why.

As it turned out, Micah was born on Pundit's sixth month anniversary. We've reached 266,000 impressions or pageviews in that time from over 125,000 visits. Thanks for being part of that. Since the election we've settled into 30-something thousand impressions per month; rest assured that's a figure we'd like to grow.

If you're wondering who you are, 111,000 of those 125,000 visits came from New Zealand. But we've been visited by people in 135 countries, from Algeria and Armenia to Zambia and Zimbabwe. The US, Australia, Britain, Canada and Japan are our top five sources of visitors. Welcome to you all!