IT IS half term and if Keith and I had expected a peaceful time we had two chances, slim and none.

Yes, as the schools close for the break our daughters pack their cars, scoop up their children and head for the hills.

They wend their way up M6, appearing at ‘Number Ten’ sometime on Friday evening with a pile of sleepy offspring.

Daughter Katharine was first to arrive with Megan, aged seven, and Freya, six.

Next up is Joanne with 11-year-old Oliver and Louie, who is five.

Paula and her family are staying home as her partner Graham has just returned from Afghanistan. Phew. Our usually neat utility room is now strewn with boots, bikes, bags and bonnets.

Beside the TV is a three-feet stack of DVDs with names like: Sponge Bob Jaffa Cake, and The Kung Fu Fairy.

Granddad Keiffy’s harmonicas are being played at a pitch just below the one only dogs can hear and there is a competition going on to see who can blow the loudest note on an ancient tuba in the cellar.

Meanwhile, we are busy hiding bells, whistles and tambourines.

The children have decimated the dressing up box and constructed a den in the cellar fully stocked and prepared for a siege.

I am getting arm ache from opening tins of beans and Keith has almost run out of silly songs to amuse them with.

The kitchen is festooned with enough packets of cereals to rival Spar and I can’t get anymore fish fingers in the freezer.

Whoopee it’s time for bed and if you are thinking it’s just a matter of saying put your pyjamas on and I’ll come and tuck you in, your dreaming.

First it’s baths, songs, stories, then arguments followed by persuasion, working it’s way toward bribery.

By the time we are finished we feel like going to bed ourselves.

Katharine went home on Monday as she had to work, the girls stayed on along with their cousins.

But hey, we will be taking them to the Birmingham Exchange this coming Sunday.

This is were we meet at the toll road services and hand over the children back to their parents.

Then we return home to celebrate with an early night.