“Aieee!, Kerplunk!, Bam!,Whamm!, Boff!”

IT’S 8am.

Upstairs. Family-life has for now assumed its old, comforting shape; all four children are home for the weekend, and it feels good to lie in bed, listening to them in the kitchen, making plans for a family day-out.

Right now, I think, if a cartoonist was to draw a picture of my family, he’d draw a roof on top of a square box with seven figures — me, my husband, children, my eldest son’s girlfriend and a dog — in it.