Keneally replied that he first instructed his daughter that she could bring her baby over to visit the family home between the hours of 10 am. and midday on  Sundays.

‘However’, he continued, ‘I forgot one very important factor...I forgot that I might fall in love with this tiny person, which I did, after which I took great delight in greeting my grandchild as often as my daughter would allow’...and so say all of us. 

Easter holidays and we have just shared six days with three of our grandchildren at our home. 

Where do all the toilet rolls disappear, and why do so many wet towels appear at the end of each day?

After we farewelled them it took four loads of washing to restock the linen press.   The fridge is laden with food Rob and I will never eat.  

But it was all great fun with lots of plans for each day.

Our grandchildren live too far away for us to see them regularly, so school holidays are our time to reconnect with these young people and begin to love and understand them all over again.

Each visit comes with quite dramatic changes in their maturity, and we hope an appreciation from them of the role we play in their lives.

They bring a refreshing directness and honesty to our discussions. 

I love the deepening voice of the 15 year old grandson, who one minute can be so devilishly irritating to two younger sisters, but the next minute is just a kid bounding outside to scoot off around the complex we live in, and return home to search for yet more food to satisfy an insatiable appetite.

I’d forgotten the food bit, but then I remembered our son walking into home from school and heading straight for the frig, followed by cries of ‘There’s nothing to eat!”

History repeats itself so it was hot cross buns, packets of chips and sausage rolls for this growing grandson. Already he towers over me.

Throw in the size fourteen shoes, the deep voice and the insatiable appetite and I’m in a time warp.

The two younger sisters kept me in a constant state of frustration over hair that is so long we continually ended up in a tangled muddle of knots and copious tears.

There is nothing like a shopping expedition for clothes to soothe the battered pony tails and calm the fractured nerves as I handed over the plastic card and whole new outfits are purchased.

Those grandparents who have children living in the same city, in our case Bendigo, are so lucky that they are able to see their grandchildren frequently, barrack embarrassingly loudly at sporting matches and assist working parents by collecting children from school. 

We have grandchildren who live too far away to make anything but occasional physical contact, and weekends are completely out as they all participate in numerous weekend sports and other activities.

So, for those of us who are the ‘occasional grandparents’ the school holidays hold a special place in our diaries.

We know this time of stay-overs won’t last forever.

I label these the ‘precious years’. 

These grandchildren are so important in our lives, although I must confess to a certain guilty pleasure in seeing the house returned to a semblance of order again!