This is my little sister who hates having her photo taken even more than I do so I think she has been very brave today as I managed to coax her this afternoon to sit for me while I pointed a camera in her face.

We’ve been playing host to a mini birthday party for Jan who finds her own birthday gets forgotten by most as she was daft enough to go and have a son two days before her birthday and she also married four days before her birthday so sometimes she feels a bit left behind in the whirlwind of extravagance that comes with the birthday of a five year old and wedding anniversary celebrations. That’s not to say she’s getting a totally hard time – she tells me she had some fantastic presents and her husband took her for a meal to ‘the most romantic restaurant in England’ on the day. But, I wanted her to have a day where she got looked after so I invited them all round for lunch.

Boy is it hard work having two small children in the house for us child-less folks. I’ve never been so exhausted as I get with these two little human hurricanes flying around. I have so much admiration for parents who surely can’t have any clue about what they let themselves in for with the birth of their children. As far as I can see it’s a case of being on the lookout 24/7 as they experiment with everything. I’m constantly amazed by my friends with kids who seem to manage a sort of serenity while chaos abounds all around them. My friend Susie is an expert at this – I have this vision of her sitting with a tranquil air while there is pandemonium going on as her four children and three step-children are causing havoc nearby.

I’ve noticed Jan has developed this same air in recent times. She’ll be sat at the table having a perfectly normal conversation and will suddenly dart up and lift a small boy away from whatever dangerous or undesirable situation he’s got into, then sit back down and carry on as though nothing has happened. The constant awareness of how long it is since they last spent a penny or how much they’ve had to drink (apple juice not beer!) seems like a totally alien concept to me. I can’t imagine ever feeling the need to spend time worrying about another human being’s toilet habits.

My parents too will be calmly going about their daily business but breaking off every now and then to say ‘don’t do that’ or ‘play nicely now’ or ‘oh yes, that’s a lovely car’ (when all I can see is a squiggle). I think it’s a new gene that is only switched on in adults when they have children but it never gets switched off so they are not phased by the grandchildren when they arrive.

I have a little secret technique – I tell the kids about DMs motorbike and his beautiful little car and his guitars and they think he’s just about the coolest man alive so they follow him around like little puppies, watching everything he does with big, wide-open eyes. Poor David, they ask him thousands of questions and insist on playing the guitars, sitting in the car and on the bike. I then get a bit of time with Jan or to finish off the cooking. Tee hee. Mind you, of course he suspects this already and now I’ve confirmed his fears I won’t be able to get away with it again.

So, since they’ve been gone, DM and I are completely exhausted and all we want to do now is flump on the sofa and watch the telly – now that says a lot because in the normal run of things we rarely put the TV on before 10pm.