I've had a lovely time this past week, because I caught up with friends and family and enjoyed the hospitality of my good friends Denise and David in Adelaide.

Last Sunday I went with my Perth family to Kings Park for a picnic, something we haven't done in years. My granddaughter Cassie is starting high school this year! Then on Monday I had coffee with my friend Harriet, and on Tuesday my friend Jay, whose dogs I'd been minding, took me to the Perth airport. We thought my bags were heavy and I was dreading putting them on the scales, but the bigger one only weighed 16 kilos - a record for me as I usually have more than I'm supposed to be allowed. I guess any bag over 10kg feels darned heavy to an overweight, unfit type like me.

What a flight to Adelaide - lots of turbulence and a head wind that slowed us considerably. But the next few days made up for that. Denise and I had coffee with Robert N. Stephenson, who kindly gave me a review copy of his newly released book, Uttuku. You could file it under vampire books, but it's based on an even older legend - that of the uttuku of ancient Assyria. However, it's a modern book, set in Adelaide, and I'm enjoying it, even though I Do Not Like Vampire Books!

On Friday Denise and I visited Funi and Wang Wang. What? You don't know them? Allow me to introduce you - here they are, in their new bamboo forest home. Funi (left) is still a bit nonplussed by the change of scene, perhaps because her new keepers don't speak Chinese, but more likely because people will keep taking pictures of her with nasty flashes. So flash photography has been banned in the panda enclosure. Even so, I still got some nice pics, although they had to be taken through the glass.

Wang Wang, however, seems quite at ease. Here he is lying on his back, munching bamboo and apparently thinking "Yeah, right, more visitors. Whatever."

The keepers, of course, are delighted with their new charges and are hoping the pair will breed in a year or two, when Funi is old enough.

It was a hot day and we were exhausted by the time we trudged back to the car. I was OK - straight into an air-conditioned bus for the six-hour ride to Mount Gambier, but poor Denise had to drive herself home.

So here I am, back in "the Mount" complete with a nice new little netbook which I'm still setting up. The mobile wireless keeps dropping out so downloading software is proving tedious. I guess I'd better get back to it!