Settling in

Dig is home, so there is much pissed off shouting in the house, mostly from me because, let's face it, we all get used to daddy Dig's absence, and life goes on whether he is in the UK or Korea. Quite simply, having him back takes some readjustment, and such readjustment is completed after a very big row about something significant and vital to all our lives, like who last ate cheese.

Dig probably feels we should be spreading palm leaves on the ground and slaughtering vegetables in celebration. Whereas in reality Grit huffs and puffs Can you not put the cheese away? and the children don't say anything at all because they totally ignore him.

However, if he delves into a briefcase and comes up with a plastic cabbage, modelled after the national treasure of South Korea, then the children are all over him like a rash until they have a monumental fight over possession of the cabbage.

While the gritlets are fighting, blood is flowing, and tears are streaming, Grit is tearing out her hair in despair, shouting Don't you know you have to buy THREE plastic cabbages? while Dig, legging it out of the kitchen, is snorting contemptuously that he has better things to do than carry a bag of plastic cabbages around south east Asia, thank you very much.

Thus begins a day of happy-back-together family harmony in the Grit and Dig household.

And if you doubt the status of a cabbage as emblem of South Korea, scroll down here.

Of course Dig would not have brought home a plastic replica of the other great national Korean symbol, a piece of pork in soy sauce, because we are vegetarian.