WARNING! This post cost contains offensive language.

Last night Grumpy's cousin, Fred, his wife, ...er...Wilma, and their sweet little six-year-old daughter, ...well, you know...Pebbles, came round to visit. They live in Lismore but are over here while Fred's been competing in the surf lifesaving championships. We had a lovely evening with them. Whenever we see Fred & Wilma I always think how nice it would be if we lived closer to each other.

Pebbles goes to a kind of hippie school where I guess they use some names and words from other languages.

I was outside scraping veggie peelings into the compost bin. Pebbles was eating corn chips and looking around for the cats.

"What are your cats called?" she asked me.

"Well, the little ginger one is called Finny and the big, brown, furry one is called Pounce."

"We've got a cat at our school just like the brown one."

"Have you?" I asked. I have to admit I wasn't really paying attention. A few spiders hang around the compost bin and I never feel quite at one with my environmental duties while I'm standing out there in the dark.

Then Pebbles told me the cat's name and she had my full attention.

"Sorry, Pebbles, what did you say the cat's name was?"

She told me again. I just couldn't have heard right. It was pretty windy,

I moved closer to her and asked, "What's the sound it starts with?" Seems the wind had carried the right word to me.

I told her, "I'm...er...I'm...I'm just going inside for a minute."

I tottered indoors feeling a little unsteady on my feet. I looked at Fred and Wilma.

"Um...the school cat?"

Fred and Wilma had the amused world-weariness of people who've been through this a thousand times before.

Fred sipped his wine and nodded his head. "Yep. The cat's called Kunta."