Au reservoir, how tarsome.

Every other term or so at University, my mother would fly in from Belgium bearing gin, duty free Marlboro, tins and tins of sardines and eye make-up remover. Somehow, this was always exactly what I needed and I would take a train from Durham to Newcastle to meet her and get the loot. This had the dual advantage of keeping her away from the shocking pigsties I inhabited (knowing she'd do tidying and washing and uncover god only knows what under the silt of squalour) and the awful possibility that I might have to introduce her to any boys whose names escaped me (or more likely, those whom my name escaped).

Anyway, we also used to go to the huge bookshop near Grey's Monument. My mother has always encouraged us to read widely and voraciously, replacing Enid Blyton with Jane Austen early on, a literary sleight of hand for which I will always be grateful. Browsing round, I'd give her edited highlights of my debauched existence; she no doubt reading between the lines and shuddering. A constant theme was how much work I had to do, having stupidly agreed to read dull and difficult modern languages instead of wonderful, fascinating English Lit. So it was probably out of guilt and a desire to provide some light relief that she suggested I try the EF Benson Mapp and Lucia series. It became a lovely tradition; every other term we'd meet up, catch up and go and choose another book and somehow I still have them all.

One chapter and I was hooked for life. Almost 25 years on, they are as fresh to me as a not-so-young mummy as they were to a cosmopolitan-if-not-sophisticated 18-year old. They chart the rises and falls and rises again of Elizabeth Mapp and her arch-rival Lucia. Set in English towns in the 1920s, these six little books have travelled a long life with me. Their sherbert-coloured spines are soft and frayed; the elegant line drawings on the front faded by desert suns. The inhabitants therein are as familiar as my own family; their petty jealousies, triumphs, pranks, plots and scheming a constant backdrop to my years in exile. I travelled with the social climbing mayoress, quaint lesbian painters, patriotically-divided padre and card-playing, gin-swilling major for decades.

Lucia, for whom we named our graceful Weimeraner, is best friends with Georgie, confirmed bachelor and collector and fervent polisher of bibelots. They mess about on the piano swooning at Mozart and pretend to speak Italian to each other; both pissing off and making jealous the bossy, dumpy Elizabeth. Their adventures are secondary - what I love is the dangerous stilletto-like writing; the spare cruelty with which Benson sketches and dispatches pretensions and snobbery.

Our Lucia, like EF Benson's, is haughty and of impeccable lineage. Watching her stalk her prey with elegant, single-minded ruthlessness is like seeing a character come to life. We were going to get a small, yappy West Highland terrier and call her Mapp. She, like her literary namesake, wouldn't have stood a chance.

If you can't be arsed to turn pages (and God knows we all have those days), watch the stories on dvd. I think the Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne triumvirate is as close to heaven-on-a-freezing-February-afternoon as you can get. Large gin and sardines-on-toast and you're there.

The dullest post in history

'Yes, young man, what can I get you?' 'It's for my mummy, can we have a bucket of gin with a Guinness top. Only she's on a coffee drip at the moment and she's boring as f*ck.' 'Yup, we've just read the Ikea post. Try a Blue Stratos chaser.'

Very emotional old day today - Carrie The Radio One Sports Presenter is off to have her baby and, given that she has been a huge part of our morning routine for five years, we are all a little damp about the eyes this morning.

I took the bots to Ikea last night, eschewing maths prep. We were supposed to be looking at wardrobes but of course passed immediately into that twilight land where things you never knew existed never mind needed suddenly fill your basket, and all sense leaves your head.

They were enchanted by the tiny-flat-you-could-kit-out-for-50p. 'Look!' shrieked Freddie. 'This is exactly what my first aparkment will be like.' He sat somberly at the teeny desk looking tenderly at the photos of random gorgeous people decorating the bookshelves. 'I can turn the telly on from bed and there's a coffee machine for when you come to stay. It's perfect.'

We came home with coloured clips-for-bags, a heart-shaped cushion with arms, some espresso cups, a new blanket for the dog and god knows what else. I thought very seriously about getting the built-in espresso maker for the kitchen - what utter bliss. I could just lie under it, mouth agape like me and my mates used to lie under the optics at college.

Of course, we didn't get near the wardrobes. We laughed a bit about that in the car this morning until the enormity of Carrie leaving hit us. I dropped them at school sniffing and gulping. I'm not much better myself. I have promised Indian takeaway for supper and a lot of games at the newly-painted library table. In the meantime, I have a billion emails to answer and a mountain of work that all needs to be dealt with before half term next week. Am thinking about getting in the stationery cupboard and not coming out.

I wonder if I could get a coffee machine installed in there.

Sometimes it's a good job I don't carry a weapon.

So yesterday, between school and club netball tournaments, I dashed into town with Rose and a little friend to get some blood-sucky girls' fetish books and a staid Diana Mitford collection for old me. We had 30 minutes in hand so they asked for hot chocolate. The lady piled on marshmallow and squirty cream and I had to go back to the counter for spoons and a million napkins. While I was up there, in came a larg-ish lady about my age with two teenage girls.

As she passed Rose and Annabel, she wagged a finger between them. 'Naughty, naughty.' They looked at her, bemused, then stuck their noses back into the dark gothic tales. I followed her to her table. 'Is there a problem?' She did a great big 'what, ME?' face. 'I'm with those girls over there.'

'Ah.' She smiled - 'All those calories...'

I was dumbstruck. 'Not that it's any of your business, but they've just done two hours of netball and they're about to do another three. They're eleven years old. I cannot believe you think it's appropriate to chastise two little girls, who you don't even know, for enjoying a hot chocolate. Do you even read the papers...'

Her smile grew frigid. My voice trailed off. I snapped shut my mouth and went back to the table. The girls didn't even look up. I was shaking with anger.

I woke up at 4 a.m. still furious and thinking of all the things I wish I had said.

However, today we have taken the dog for a very very long walk, painted a coffee table for the library and thrown away a ton of clutter and I have a little perspective. Another hour painting and listening to Lisa Hannigan's ethereal Sea Sew and I might even let the Colonel change the subject.

"He's in the attic!"

"Sweet baby Jesus, say it ain't so." "Yup, gals, 'fraid Ah have it on the best authoridee." "No! Those college-type fellas that blahg about fancy clothes dress like that?" "Shore do, hun." "Why, Ah jest feel so cheap."

Two words: Dorian Gray
Two more: don't bother.

As the bots say, hijus.

Ben Chaplin delivered the perfomance of a Mme Tussaud escapee, but with less range. Colin Firth, popping in from Improbable Pointy Beard land en route to the lockjaw doctor, delivered every line as though he had the runs and needed urgently to dash off set. With smirking. As for the rest of the stellar British line-up, all completely forgettable, apart from Rebecca Hall inexplicably reprising her role in the lovely Starter for 10, contemporary sneer, Doc Martens and ciggie included.

The dog rather enjoyed the special effects.

It did, however, set us up perfectly for the amazing Up in the Air. Do see it, whatever you do, and especially if, at the moment, you feel you don't do much. It was thought-provoking and impeccably acted and just went to show that all the usual British suspects plus fabulous costume department do not a watchable film make without a half-way decent script and some commitment.

Also, if someone who smells stale and looks shiny creeps out of a cinema doorway and offers you free tickets for Have You Heard About the Morgans, run away fast as you can, screaming at the top of your lungs till you find a policeman or a nice family to look after you.

"...ceilings fantastically clouded by smoke and dust..."

Your gracious Majesty will need to lay right off the penny buns and pints of port and lemon is she wants to avoid getting stuck in my new bath again. Here is your new menu list. Yes, that says two Bath Oliver biscuits a day, your regal tiny-bottomed Empress of India, and no, I'm not taking the piss.

About twelve years ago, my parents retired. The Northern Socialist had grown weary of globetrotting and morphed into a devoted old grandpappy, hanging up his ruler-for-walloping-wayward-kids and football boots and swapping bellows for lullabies. They sold their place abroad and started looking around Down South. The NS wanted a bungalow - years of restoring houses had tried his patience and wallet and he felt that spare bedrooms would encourage his sodding offspring to darken his doorstep and outstay their welcome.

He was roundly ignored - my mother and sister found an old tumble-down gothic Victorian pile in an ivy-clad, slightly gloomy village. It was enormous - cellars, attics, a bottomless, vertigo-inducing well in a room downstairs, peeling old paper with ancient horse-and-carriage scenes, windows on the outside with no correlating rooms and many many ghosts. An old lady put it up for auction on the understanding it would be restored to a family house and that she could come and visit twice a year to see children play on the wickedly neglected lawns. My mother and sister decided to buy it together and split it into two parts; a full-time one for the olds and a holiday house for the Pretty One and her family.

My parents and the Pretty One and the Professor put in a sealed bid and won. The NS was furious. The rest of us were delighted. Work began in earnest. My parents camped for six cold, filthy months in the butler's pantry, living on fish and chips and wine, oil lamps strung up and a paint-spattered wireless crackling Radio 4. The Professor, by contrast, stayed in London, sending down teams of artisans who has worked on the restoration of Hampton Court.

They had their work cut out, all of them. The place had been neglected for years, but from the damp, dirty, dingy rooms, the bones of a home emerged. The house had been built for one of Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting, and, hopeful and career-minded as these types are, she had high hopes of a Royal visit. Dashing of hopes as the royal types are, it never happened - the specially-built porch to screen her arrival from common eyes; the blank stone shield on the side wall all ready to be inscribed with the details of her Majesty's visit; the new bathroom with a thunderously flushing loo and huge wide bath, all for nothing. Royal sceptics and suck-ups alike may draw lessons from this bathetic scene.

The artisans were briefed to replace all the rotting cornices around the tops of the walls. They studied Victorian domestic design books and archives; blueprints were found and pored over. Many moulds were cast before the correct plaster shape emerged, then the job started of casting the cornices, carefully removing them from the moulds and mounting them on the walls. The Northern Socialist and my mother went to B&Q and bought tenner-a-metre polystyrene cornicing in a Victorian style. Over the past twelve years, not a single visitor out of the hundreds who've passed through the shielding porch has ever been able to tell where the precious plaster ends and the polystyrene begins.

The joke has worn exceedingly thin with the Professor.

Lionel the Lollipop

Christ, what is Mummy doing to the vicar? Dunno, perhaps his zip has broken. She only said she needed to speak to him about parking. Golly, that could put someone's eye out.

So for the last twenty-odd years, Lionel the Lollipop man has safely escorted generations of children across the road from the church car park (where we abandon our huge 4x4s to the utter fury of the vicar - I once left both doors wide open on mine, being late and in a tearing hurry, and came back to find some MOST un-Christian sentiments stuck to the windscreen) across a busy road to the school grounds. Rain and shine, he's there in his hi-vis tabard, cheerful, helpful and just the tiniest bit wistful.

The brand-new Nursery children do traffic projects and a proud, beaming barrel-chested Lionel spends an hour in the upstairs hall explaining his important role to class after class, year after year; then they draw pictures of him and always remember to say 'good morning, Lionel' when they see him. Freddie always signs off his phone calls 'bye-bye Mummy/Daddy/Gan-Gan/Tante, I love you.' One day, unthinkingly, he said 'bye-bye, Lionel, I love you,' and it wasn't till Rose walloped him that he realised what he had done. Not surprisingly, from then on, Lionel always stopped everything for Freddie; flashing ambulances, juggernauts, coppers on bikes. They have also discovered a mutual love of cricket which, especially in the summer months, leaves crowds of little ones stranded on the other side of the road as Lionel and Freddie earnestly discuss batting averages and what their heroes might get for tea at the Oval.

On discovering Freddie's Other Grandparents live abroad, Lionel presented him last term with a special sim card for a mobile which apparently saves a fortune on international calls. In fact, it did and I instructed Freddie to thank Lionel very much indeed. On Monday, he did, and Lionel said 'Oh good. I only ever phone my wife and my friend in London, so I didn't need it.'

By the time we got to the Jeep, Freddie was unable to speak. He and Rose sat horror-struck on the back seat. 'What?' I demanded crossly. Freddie was crying silently. 'Lionel,' he sniffed. 'He's only got one friend to phone.' 'And he lives in London,' sobbed Rose. 'Oh God,' she looked at her brother, 'I bet he stays up all night getting cricket stuff off the telly to talk to you about.' Their crying continued. Freddie said his heart hurt when he thought about Lionel. I suggested he stop thinking about him then. 'The holidays,' they gulped. 'He must be so lonely.' 'And we never even sent him a card from Barbados. He'd have loved that, it's where Brian Lara lives.' They were super-enthusiastic when they greeted him on Tuesday.

I am in London working for a couple of days, so my parents are managing the delicate emotional state of my children. I think I might tell them the vicar's only got one friend and he lives in Heaven; perhaps four huge tear-swimming blue eyes will distract him from my crap parking. It's worth a go.

In which I grow a large moustache and spout the Telegraph.

What the f*ck? Where the hell is the X-Box? Tell me the mad bitch doesn't think we're gonna play outside with that shitey pile of branches and old string. Get my mobile now. I've got Max Clifford on speed dial.

The bloody dog ran away this morning on our walk. She's still only a puppy but she's also a shocking tart; she will go home with pretty much anyone that gives her a bit of attention and we all know girls like THAT. She charged off to the corner of the field and into the graveyard, following a golden retriever and a tall man in a waxed jacket. I scrambled over the wall and cut them off, grabbing her collar and redeeming her reputation. The man was most amused that I'd climbed a wall. Perhaps he thought I was too sophisticated for such child-like pursuits. More likely he thought I was too old.

On the long hike back, I was remembering the many many walls I have climbed in my time. As children, before the Abdication, the Northen Socialist used to take us walking for miles about the North of England. Sometimes we came across natural obstacles; sometimes he went on ahead and made them for us. We kids then had to make bridges and walkways; the higher and more dangerous the better. Bits of wood, old tyres, rope and haybales. Fording freezing streams, often falling in. Climbing trees and great dry stone walls; inventing labrynth plank-lined passages high above the fields; stalking imaginary lions in the fells.

My own children, and several others, once spent a whole day under the Colonel's command, re-routing a river in the Lake District. They moved tons of stones, ferns, soil. Some of the operation took place up a cliff; some waist-deep in water. There were duckings and grazes and squabbles, but eight filthy happy faces cheered a new torrent through the gloaming as night fell. But it was a rare day; they certainly weren't Macguyvering suspension bridges out of old cardboard and string on a weekly basis. More's the pity.

I know it's fashionable to decry the lack of physical challenges our children face, but I think they are losing out more on the mental and emotional benefits. Not to give up straight away. To laugh at yourself when you can't do something instead of casting about for someone to do it for you. To admire those who quietly don't give up instead of whining, sobbing-in-newspapers arseholes who think that making your lack of spine public absolves you of responsibility. To encounter a challenge and bloody well give it a go, not crumple pathetically and bemoan the cards fate dealt you.

I came home bristling about this. The Colonel is begging me to spend less time alone. And to start drinking again. He's probably got a point.