Recipe for joy

Ingredients: * A crisp, sunshiney autumn day * Devonshire Tea * One 10-month-old baby * About 30 cooing, adoring grown-ups * A ride in an open-sided jeep with orange chairs * The animals of the savannah, roaming free

Toss in a gentle stroll through forests and along river-banks, to taste

Method:

Mix well and serve liberally.

Yields: 18 baby belly-laughs, 10 squeals of delight, six episodes of over-excited bouncing, and five chances to hold hands with your beloved.

For added flavour, when baby is exhausted from all the excitement and starts sucking her fingers and looking rather concerned, strap her into the carrier where she will snuggle like a meerkat and fall asleep on your chest, gently snoring into your neck just like she did when she was tiny. Kiss her forehead.

Yields: pure bliss.

(ps. We were at Werribee Zoo)