It may be trite, but I was inspired to start a family by Schulze’s Peanuts cartoon strip. All those wonderful half-pint philosophers, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and, of course, Snoopy. Children (and dogs) were bound to be a wow at dinner parties with their witty, homespun homilies.

My faith was well placed and real life jumped right out at me from the pages of the Daily Mail.

As soon as she could talk (yak is probably more like it) my little daughter brought a picnic conversation to a complete sandwich choking halt with a remark on the weather worthy of Kierkegaard.

“The sun’s gone in - must have felt a bit chilly,” she said.

We all sat there musing for a moment on that ‘which-came-first-chicken-and-egg’ nugget from my very own Peppermint Patti.

Does it get chilly because the sun’s gone in, or did the sun go in because it was chilly?