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Do you ever experience that desperate brain escapism that accompanies a period of sustained and unrelenting ‘work’? The mind seems to kick into survival mode – any spare thinking moment is involuntarily occupied by a growing mental list of all those exciting and terribly pressing things you must do when the ‘work’ is over…

My husband, Tim, has been stationed in his marking throne almost continuously for nearly a month, pausing only to eat and help bath the girls and put them to bed when he could. The workload was huge and his stoicism has been characteristically remarkable. I am assured that it is now officially over. If nothing else, his antics this evening convinced me of this:

As I was setting-to with the dishes after the girls had been bathed and put to bed, he appeared at the kitchen door with a hose and a G-clamp, flashed me a cheeky look and disappeared upstairs…

I didn’t bat an eyelid.

About quarter of an hour later there was a jubilant whoop from the vegetable beds:

…a splendid way to celebrate (the pressure was quite surprising – you could almost imagine a bottle of fizz in place of the hose…)