I know, I can’t believe it either. I’m starting the week writing about socks. But I’m totally baffled.

Where do they go? I would have noticed if the children had an odd number of feet and yet, in an experiment on the sock distribution through our laundry process it’s the only rational conclusion.

We average three and a half pairs each, while the box labelled Sock Orphanage is an overflowing Dickensian nightmare, liable to burst forth with Annie’s Tomorrow at any moment.

For too long, deviant singletons and odd misfits have roamed this house (I’m still talking socks), so I put my foot down, the one with the red trim, and will be running a police state from now on.

I threatened the children with calibration in and out of the hallway: anything holey or mismatched would be binned or turned into a puppet.

Maybe family flip-flops are the answer now that the daffodils have leapt golden from hibernation. And true to the season, the children too have shot up like boisterous beanstalks. The boys look like Oliver cast-offs, demanding ‘More’ as their trousers flap halfway down scuffed shins.

The Daughter however, Amazonian with verdant growth, looks remarkably well-dressed. She has sprung into my wardrobe with alarming ferocity and I don’t know whether to seize the chance to go uber-funky to cater to her taste or upgrade to smart country casuals in beige and biscuit to scare her off.

And this week The Youngest suffered from growing pains Psychologically.

I may slip a little in the Mothers’ League rankings when I confess that I laughed until I cried on discovering that instead of taking his carrier bag of Show-and-Tell into school, he had mistakenly picked up a load of clothes for the charity shop.

Quite how he told the tale of out-grown PJs and 3rd hand trainers to the assembled school, I daren’t imagine.