Balmoral beach babes

Had a lovely winter morning on Monday at Balmoral beach with Zoe, her 3-year-old Sam and baby Bronte. Sam and Scarlett love playing together and after some initial squabbling over the ownership of a bag, it was pants off and they were legging it in and out of the surf, laughing then screaming. It was an absolute joy to watch them. Were kept awake on Monday night as our local high street was shut down to accommodate a World Cup live site. We were guaranteed noise either way as Australia were playing Italy and Leichhardt where we live is one of the biggest Italian suburbs in Sydney. Pleased the socceroos got as far as they did before Italy clomped them but secretly happy England will now go further even if it's only until Portugal do their dance of death over us.

All better now

All on tenterhooks in our house as we eagerly await our phone call from Nicole Kidman telling us where we will be going to attend her top secret wedding on Sunday. Hoping she will be asking Scarlett to be a flowergirl. Have an outfit picked out for her just in case. Luckily our young Miss is quite recovered from her recent illness, despite the croup turning into a throat infection requiring Anti-biotics. Rob took her to the Botanic Gardens for a bracing walk to clear away the cobwebs. As usual she was the subject of much attention from Japanese visitors who find her absolutely fascinating. That peroxide and those hair extensions have really paid off. She must be in hundreds of photo albums across Japan. "oh yes this was a blonde girl we saw in Sydney. That building in the background? Oh, it's the opera house or something, but look at how blonde and curly her hair is." We also managed another zoo outing. Scarlett's favourite bit is the ride in the gondola. Back home, she kicked back with some Nancy Sinatra and Mummy's new boots. 'Larti wearing the Mummy boots.' Finally a lovely shot from Rob taken at 6am on his cycle into work. Overnight Sydney has gone bonkers as the Socceroos made it through to the next round in the World Cup. This is the furthest they have ever got in the tournament before. Will be too much to bear if they get further than England however, in which case we will have to leave the country. I hear Togo's lovely.

What the...?

On Monday night Rob and I were watching telly, when we were startled by an odd noise. It sounded quite like a bull seal barking, but as our only domestic pet is a small, quite useless, tabby cat, we naturally assumed there must be a bull seal on the roof of the house. We were wrong. The noise of the large water-loving mammal was coming from the mouth of our dear sweet Scarlett who had suddenly developed Croup. Poor lamb, she cried and barked on and off all night. After a visit to Dr Dimitri, formerly of Moscow, now of Leichhardt, who confirmed the Google diagnosis, he instructed us to monitor her temperature and breathing. He hoped she would improve on her own but added if she didn't we could be facing getting her to inhale steroids (at last a chance to get on the Chinese 'women's' swim team) or worse a trip to the hospital. We took her to the zoo to cheer her up but she stared to go down hill, her temperature spiked and she became floppy and tearful. And so did we. A second night of barking kept us all up, so much so that I had to call in sick yesterday as I was shattered. Scarlett and I passed the morning doing puzzles in our pyjamas, Daddy slept in until midday. Enough said. Then it was Mummy and Scarlett's turn to go back to bed. Another restless night last night and she is still not 100%, seems tired all the time and a bit needy, but the barking is now less seal like and more Lauren Bacallesque. I reluctantly came back to work today and we have kept Scarlett out of nursery so she and Rob are off to the sales - a sure-fire way to make a girl feel better. This pic is months and months out of date but remains one of my favourites and shows Miss Scarlett in the rude health she usually enjoys.

These are our readers

As you know one of my jobs on the Sydney Morning Herald is a fortnightly column I write in the Saturday magazine Good Weekend called Modern Guru. Readers write in with 'etiquette' dilemmas that need solving and I reply. I found the following letter so bizarre I thought you might all like to share it and my answer to it. It will be in the paper next month. Remember, these are real letters.

Q. After our Saturday morning "lie in" is the only time my husband and I use the bathroom together. While I shower, he towel dries and then proceeds to blow dry his private areas. If that's not bad enough he then hoists his foot up next to the vanity and dries between the toes one by one. He says it keeps the tinea in check, I say it's gross. What do you think ?

A. What do I think? What do I think? You've just told me, and a sizeable readership of this newspaper, that after a weekly interlude with your husband, he grabs a hair dryer and blow dries his genitals. Do you understand what you have written? You do know people will be reading this, don't you? I have an image in my head I know will keep me awake for many nights. It is of a hair dryer in the hands of a strange man and it is not being pointed at his head. What do you think I think? Of course it's gross. Anyone would think it was gross. A dog would think it was gross. Not to mention weird. Gross and weird. Why would you need any confirmation? I haven't even started giving any in-depth thought to the tinea situation lower down other than to confirm that, once I get my head around it, I suspect that I will also classify this action of podiatary misconduct as COMPLETELY GROSS. Imagine if he went through this performance before your `lie in'. The sparks would fly, that's for sure. And aren't you curious to know what he gets up to with your hair styling appliances on the days you don't share the bathroom? I think you should pack your bags and leave now and don't forget the hair dryer. Leaving it behind constitutes a flagrant abuse of power.