A Lemon Tree, My Dear Watson.

Still no laptop so still no photos. I'm sorry, because I've got a couple of beauts to show you.

Reid introduced Laurie and Elvira to the delightful English custom of scrumping today. We were at their house with a couple of other families enjoying a lovely Mexican feast to celebrate Mother's Day, yes - that's right, down under they have Mother's Day in May. I got stung having to celebrate twice this year. Stupid custom. Where was I? Oh yes. I went outside to get Calvin and Reid so that we could go home and found Reid with two fistfuls of lemons that he'd helped himself to from a lemon tree growing outside Laurie and Elvira's house. I felt it was a very British response to the situation. "Thank you for inviting us to your country and feeding us. We'll now help ourselves to your home grown produce and be on our way". Of course, Laurie and Elvira didn't mind. Australians are, in general, lovely.

On the subject of fruit, we visited the nice town of Orange last week. On the way there we stopped off at Wellington and had morning tea at The Cactus Cafe. It's a brilliant place. Possibly the best milkshakes that I have ever tasted. And that's no fib.

I've discovered that another name for 'morning tea' is 'smoko'. It comes from the typical Aussie approach to long words which is, as previously mentioned, to shorten them and add an 'o' on the end. Smoko is short for 'Smoking Break' and has found its way into general parlance to the extent that it's even possible to find preschools that talk of giving the children smoko. I can now understand why Ramsey Street and Summer Bay are full to the brim of morons and wayward psychopaths. They were given smoko as children.

Some more Aussie words - muso (musicians), compo (compensation for injured workers - c.f. benefits) and - a splendidly Christian example - devos (for 'devotions' and not 'deviants').

I'll try and keep the blog updated but I'm sure that you appreciate that it's a bit harder without a handy computer in my room. We might be able to borrow one shortly, which will help, and hopefully PC World will return my e-mails and advise me as to what to do next with my laptop. Have a nice day. I know that we will.