If you had come round to our house at any time in the last 10 years, you wouldn’t need to be told that we had two sons. You’d have guessed immediately.

As you were greeted at the front door, you’d have had to step over several pairs of trainers in unfeasibly, cartoonishly large sizes – none of the “lefts” in the same postcode as the “rights” and certainly not in the area where the rest of us put our shoes.

As you pop into the kitchen, you’d be greeted by the “dishwasher zone”. Various cereal bowls and toast plates have been dutifully collected up and placed near – sometimes very near – the dishwasher, but that last bit of the job, the part where you place the crockery inside, has clearly been abandoned because no doubt something more important has come up.

Our children’s existence would be obvious by now, but just for confirmation, perhaps you look in a bedroom and find that, due to what can only be a lack of cupboard space, all clothes (washed or unwashed) are on the floor. And there’s only room on the floor because whatever was there before has now been stuffed under the bed.

I might be exaggerating for effect but it has been a joy watching our two sons growing up and, as I’m sure they’ll tell you, we’ve always dealt with it with enormous grace and good humour. We’ve never accused them of........

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