She was very well behaved while visiting the hairdresser and devoured her doggy treat afterwards.

She looks skinnier than I expected, which suggests that we aren’t feeding her too much. She doesn’t want more food, so I guess she’s healthy.

Next job on the list is to have her fixed.

Her favourite things in life are to go for walks and have her tummy rubbed. She’s pretty cute whether a fluff ball or shaved.

On the way back, Sooty ran off and disappeared. The light was fading and she’s a black fur ball, so we had no hope of spotting her.

We called out and searched along the road, which at least had some light, to no avail.

I went to fetch a torch from home. When we got there, Sooty was already inside. She had crossed the road by herself, found our house in the dark, and scratched on the door to be let in.

That’s a pretty good effort from a five-month-old puppy.

We then opened presents, which in proportion to the time it takes to buy and wrap them, represents a ratio of about one to a million.

It takes longer to pick up and dispose of the wrapping paper.

The next hour was spent calming disputes between James and Margaret over who owned which toy. The concept of sharing hasn’t yet permeated. Each claims to own whatever the other one is holding at a given time.

Margaret was quite possessive over her baby doll, which James threatened to kidnap on multiple occasions and succeeded twice.

Meanwhile, we also had to assemble, inflate and install various other items.

Why tiny plastic ride-on tractors can’t come ready to use out of the box is a mystery of the modern world. We don’t have to assemble motor vehicles; why kiddie toys?

Likewise with Kathleen’s bean bag. The 100 litres of stuffing had to be poured from two plastic bags and, of course, several litres finished up on the floor.

Dude’s soccer goals are waiting to be put together. He has no urgency, because he’s busy installing computer games.

One of our dear friends gave James and Margaret a mini ball pit. It has to be blown up. The 50 plastic balls were scattered beforehand and two have already been punctured by the dog.

The same lady gave the twins a plastic megaphone for their birthday. Does she really like us?

Things are calming down now. Having spent the first few days of my holiday playing cricket, I think I can expect to be playing soccer today.

We’re having turkey for lunch. It’ll be a low-key and hopefully quiet affair, then we pack up for a long drive to my parents’ home tomorrow.

A minute later I saw two dogs and another animal running towards me on the opposite side of the road. I thought at first the mystery animal was a large calf, but it turned out to be a small deer.

I stopped and puzzled about how I could call off the dogs, but before I could cross the road and act they were past me. I felt quite sad about the situation, because the deer appeared to be tiring. There was no sign of them on my return leg.

Deer were introduced to Australia in the 19th century and they’re common in sub-alpine areas. They’re elusive though, and I’ve never actually seen one in the bush, so it was quite a surprise to see one within a kilometre of town.

mum, dad, dude, leen, dog, snowy, stevie, ouch (pronounced ow), oh oh, poo, wee, pie, more, ta, bowl, teddy, moo, mine, bickie, bird, dodo, bob, water (walla), bottle (boll), claudia, bubba, nose, no, juice, belly, boobs (beebee), door, ball.

That’s 33 words altogether. Most relate to people, body parts, bodily functions and food.

Juliet tells me the babies plastered him with strawberry jam!

Going past the Lumsden’s dairy farm I noticed the newborn calves and pondered their existence. Never to know their dads, these little one have already been weaned from their mums.

Half of them (the girls) will have it easy. They’ll be well fed and receive proper medical care. Unless Bruce decides to raise a few vealers they will only ever have sex with a syringe, but everything else will be sweet.

The boys, on the other hand. They’ll end up in a tin of dog food. There’s something not quite right about that.

There’s a fantasic swimming hole there, with a sandy bottom and deep water.

We spent more than three hours enjoying the water in hot sun. Snowy came too and had fun floating on the air mattress.

We were the first to arrive at 11am, but by the time we left about 2.30pm there were 10 cars at the remote spot.

I presume the name dates back to the gold mining days of the 1860s.

He’s a maltese/shihtzu cross, about eight weeks old. The kids have been wanting to get a dog for a long time now and we gave in, providing they share responsibility for looking after him.

He’s a cute little bloke and won’t grow too big.