Thank you Mr Postman, you seem to have an unerring instinct to know where such a letter should land...and it did.

Inside was an invitation: ‘Olive invites Nanna and Grandpa to Grandparents and Special Friends Day to be held at school from 9.30 am to 10.30 am after which morning tea will be served’.

Olive is a preppie, the last of our grandchildren to begin school. They are now all in ‘the system’.

We couldn’t refuse this invitation when we had managed a trip to Melbourne for all the other invitations in years past.

It was a special morning.  This was to be the last grandchild to welcome us, as Olive did, with a huge beaming smile, a skip across to greet us and a hug for both of us. Mind you, I can still be wrapped in a big bear hug from her nearly fifteen year old cousin.

While Rob sat with Olive and they coloured in and chatted together, I spent time with Haydon, Olive’s little friend who had no grandparents there to share the hour.

I asked if I could be his Nanna today. He glowed with joy as we coloured and gossiped together.

The colouring in included drawing around Olive’s little hand with the words circling it saying ‘I love you with all my heart!  Even ten little fingers can’t count the way.’ It is still on the fridge at home of course.

We were entertained with a concert of songs about grandparents, sung with great enthusiasm by the infant school. I found my eyes filling with tears. These little people sang with such love and we returned it in full measure.

That same morning the terrible explosions in Brussels were being broadcast around the world. One couldn’t help but contrast this fun-filled morning of happiness and well-organised activities for grandparents with the terrible scenes of carnage and tragedy being played out overseas.

Two different worlds.

Judging from the children attending this school, which include different cultures from all over the world, these children are so fortunate to live in Australia, and not in some other parts of the world. There is no doubt there are beautiful and safe places to visit overseas, but perhaps we have a little more trepidation than a few months ago.

In the last few years in each classroom I‘ve visited in Melbourne I have seen every different skin colour, every different shaped face, and children quite oblivious to any of those differences.

That must bode well for the future of Australia. We are such an homogenous people and have been for several generations now. Australia is known as the United Nations with good reason. There are over 200 countries represented in Australia (2011 Census). That can only enrich this country in all its diversity.

As more news came of lost lives and terrible injuries in Brussels, we could only contemplate the good fortune we have to call Australia home.

Here we can feel reasonably safe, (without being smug), as we absorb our mini United Nations in classrooms across Melbourne and our regional centres.

Thank you Olive for your invitation, and thank you to the teachers at Olive’s primary school; you gave your grandparents a morning to remember, and a wonderful experience to share with our happy, welcoming granddaughter.