Living in a house with three enormous dogs is not like living with my own tiny one. Things that get left on tables could be shredded, plates could be licked and I told the wolfhound to get down before I realised that her feet were actually on the floor!

My sandpapered sinuses / allergy to Australia has moved on to a full blown cold. I am sitting about sneezing into a paper handkerchief and thanking some sort of deity that I am not reliant on going to restaurants for all my meals.

Today we have been to the Stanforth museum to admire the fortitude and adaptability of early settlers to the region.

View over the town of Stanthorpe from Mount Marley. It’s a nice town with a range of facilities, a lot of them sporting.

In the afternoon there was a concert in the local art gallery given by a pianist, Max Foster. He sounds like he is on the verge of an international career but is playing small towns around Queensland as part of a cultural project.

There was also a chance to look around some of the things in the art gallery.