I must be hot blooded or I have a hot body (puns galore) because I regularly overheat during the night.

By that I mean I can feel my body heat rising. If it gets too much I wake up and need a drink of water and sometimes I have trouble getting back to sleep.

I like to sleep liberated, without fabric intrusions close to my person (yep, in the birthday suit). I find it’s better for the body clock to fumble for the electric blanket on a cold morning than to wake up hot and thirsty.

The Israeli journalists who questioned the Dutch Foreign Minister using a web translator must be extremely embarrassed.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry isn’t too happy either. “How could this email possibly have been sent? These journalists have sparked a major, major incident,” said an Israeli official. “Sure he can’t understand many of the questions, because the English is so bad. But he is being asked about the sleeping arrangements of his mother!”

Apparently the failed translation attempt was from Hebrew to English. I wonder what they would have got from a Hebrew-Dutch service if they’d found one.

I find the web translators useful for gaining a basic understanding of web sites, especially those in German and Dutch, which I partly understand anyway. That’s all I use them for.

At least we’re all sleeping in our own beds tonight.

We nearly didn’t have it delivered today because I had to fax back a quarantine form declaring we had no fruit or vegetables in the container, and I only got back from a meeting before the deadline.

They’re very strick about quarantine regulations in WA, much more so than South Australia, where I crossed the border without fuss. At Eucla they searched my car and confiscated an apple box.

The exception was caused by Juliet travelling to Yarra Glen to pick up Kathleen and Dude from my father, who was meeting her part of the way from Moe.

Margaret gets terribly car sick, so we decided she should stay at home with me.

Both twins are lively characters, but yesterday Maggie was like a coiled spring, or a battery toy that never stops.

I think the occasion of being solely with me was something unique that she decided to capitalise on. The only time she spent entertaining herself was while I cleaned out the back shed, which I did in two one-hour bursts. She was happy then to play with toys or objects that she found, under my watch and between cuddles.

For the rest of the time she was constantly active. I pulled her to the post office in the kids’ billycart, worked around the house and rescued various items of electrical equipment and furniture from Margaret’s interest.

If I ever had cause to correct her behavior she came running for another cuddle. How can you resist?

She was so exhausted by 12.30pm that she went down early for a sleep, which I had to wake her from at 2.45pm because we had a real estate inspection looming.

I was pretty exhausted too, but it was an enjoyable day and one that I’ll cherish given the six-week absence I’ll soon have from the family.

I leave for Kalgoorlie on January 17. Juliet and the kids will follow at the end of February.

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.

The catalyst was Kathleen wanting to separate the bunk bed in her room to a single, with half being transferred to the nursery for James.

Meanwhile, Maggie still starts in a cot, wakes up after a few hours and snuggles up to Mum for the rest of the night.

The other toddler milestone is their increasing use of the potty, but that doesn’t seem such a reader-friendly topic to write about.

The blowflies are buzzing, mozzies are menacing and multiple bugs of all shapes and sizes are enjoying the warm and wet conditions.

As you can gather it’s not so pleasant at the moment. Weather at this time of year is still changeable and more humid than it will be from mid December.

I’ve come to like the hot dry days of January and February, as our nights generally cool down enough for a good sleep.

Up early, I discovered "the city that never sleeps" has a quiet spell between 5am and 6am.

I went for a run/walk, skirting the edges of The Domain and following the foreshore (it’s hard to run contiguously though traffic lights and up/down steps).

I had no idea where I was or where I was going, but figured I could follow the same route back.

I must have been opposite the naval dockyards because I saw three RAN ships at the wharf. Large navy vessels always bring out the boy in me. I think they’re marvellous and at various times in my youth I thought about joining the Navy.

Continuing around the headland I encountered the stunning site of the Sydney Opera House, with the Harbour Bridge as a backdrop. Magnificent, and not a soul around.

I ran to the steps of the Opera House before retracing my route back. The harbour sights will stay with me forever.

After breakfast and reading the papers I walked into the city, bought some books and caught a bus out to the SCG.

The cricket was more enjoyable today. The crowd was bigger, but better behaved. I think first-day crowds attract a yahoo element. Most of the people there yesterday were on corporate junkets, as far as I could tell, given the mobile phones that never stopped ringing.

Today’s crowd was more appreciative of the contest and less boozy. On the ground there were plenty of wickets, some great batting by Sehwag, good bowling by Flintoff early, Warne and McGill.

I had more energy today, despite the early start, but think it will be another early night.

Normal readers will assume that I just returned from a night on the town. The fact is that I woke up half an hour ago, having gone to bed at 8.30pm!

The story begins at 4am yesterday when the alarm work me at an hour that only exists in my subconscious.

I then had a 75-minute drive to Albury to catch a 6.30am flight to Sydney. I met unplanned at Albury with a mate from Walwa. We chatted on the plane and took a bus into the city together. The peak hour traffic was unreal.

I left my bag at the hotel, asked for directions to the SCG and embarked on the 45-minute walk. It was actually an hour by the time I dodged traffic and found the correct entrance.

I was settled in the grandstand at 10am, 30 minutes before the start of play. Not bad considering that six hours earlier I had been sound asleep in Porepunkah.

The cricket itself was pretty good; slow in the first session as the ball moved around a bit. Gilchrist was sensational when he came in. Hayden’s innings was stodgy more than entertaining.

Back to my hotel a little after six, I bought some Thai food from a neat little restaurant across the road, briefly explored the local area and came back to phone Juliet and the kids.

The area here is hard to describe. I’m at The Boulevard in William Street, accommodation purchased through Travelmate six months ago. It’s equidistant, as I said, from major attractions, but close to nothing.

There are car-hire firms everywhere, hostels, terrace houses, empty shops, convenience stores, hairdressers and seedy-looking pubs. I can’t easily compare it with anywhere in Melbourne, as all the inner suburbs there are now yuppified. Richmond or Collingwood comes closest.

The hotel is okay. Nothing flash, but 10 floors up the constant street noise is slightly diminished.

There was no power point near the phone socket, and my ancient Dell laptop needs power for an external modem. I improvised a solution, logged on and happily found just 14 emails.

The plan now is that I’ll go for a run at first light. The map shows that I’m close to the Domain. Hopefully I won’t trip over any drunks.

RIP party animal.

We knew it was inevitable that one of the toddlers would soon get stuck in a tree.

It happened to Dude when he was two, and before Kathleen was walking we once found her asleep at the top of the stairs after following a trail of abandoned plastic fish.

It was Margaret’s turn today. She became attached to a branch while descending the mandarine tree. James watched on, unconcerned, while munching fruit.