BARNEY AND THE GNOMES

I am honoured to have a correspondent in Adelaide who has e-mailed me to say how much she enjoys reading about Barney`s adventures.

Well, here he was a short while ago having been introduced to the gnomes who look after the bottom of my garden. I`m not sure quite what Barney made of them or, indeed, what the gnomes thought about their territory being invaded but from the picture it seems that the gnomes have the upper hand - at least for now.

It is, of course, perfectly in keeping with my mental age of twelve that I would have gnomes in my garden. A couple of years ago, we were browsing around the local garden centre when they were having a `Gnome Event.` The deal was, Buy-Two-Get-The-Third-Free, so I did. Ever since, I`ve had to tread carefully around their sensitivities, for I have not yet had the heart to explain which of the three of them is the free one.

The reason I feel genuinely honoured by my antipodean correspondent is that she is a direct decendant of one of the Companions of Stuart - the incomparable explorer, John McDouall Stuart, one of my all time heroes, responsible for paving the way for the route of the overland telegraph and the Stuart Highway across the continent. I`ve told the gnomes about my correspondent friend, of course, and Barney is flattered that she has fallen for his charms, which, whilst considerable, are not quite so apparent at 4.15am.