Lonie Polony’s Lexical Guide to Australia Day Family Outings

Pleasant and enjoyable: A picnic with my family on the grass beside a river while we watch people swimming and playing cricket.

Nuisance: Tenacious ants crawling all over our rug, reminding me why I don’t like picnicking and outdoorsy things.

Tasty: A lunch of ham and cheese rolls, hard-boiled eggs and cinnamon buns.

Unpalatable: Master Lonie’s lunch of leaves and twigs. Insufficient data to compare with his sand feast from a couple of weeks ago.

Exhilarating: A ride on the local stainless steel bobsled.

Short-sightedness: Letting Miss Lonie have her fifth marshmallow in the car on the way home.

Dreadful: The tell-tale throat sound of imminent vomit-eruption.

Frantic: Me shouting, “Pull over!” to Mr. Lonie, who once again displays a pathological unwillingness to do so even when a passenger is upwardly-ejecting stomach contents.

Stench: Partially digested ham and cheese roll, hard-boiled egg, cinnamon bun and marshmallows spewed over clothes, face, hair and car-seat.

Inexplicable: Spray-pattern of vomit, which indicates a gravity-defying chuck up onto Miss Lonie’s hat

Unpleasant and unenjoyable: Removing and stripping car seat, locating and cleaning each of the hundred nooks and crevices vomit has seeped into.

Serendipity: Finding $2 partially submerged in spew.