PARENTING is a bit like a game of Downfall. You keep twisting the knobs hoping for the little counters to pop out the bottom. Sometimes they get jammed and you have to turn the knobs back and forth a few times. You have several counters and you need to decide which knob to turn to get all the counters out. It’s quite fun but you’re aware there are more exciting things you could be doing with your time.

We seem to have a lot of knobs to turn at the moment, especially as the countdown to Christmas has begun in earnest. Even now, somewhere in a factory in China, or a boat sailing across the Indian Ocean, is a brightly coloured piece of plastic that will delight one of the kids for minutes and gather dust for years.

We’re so busy that sometimes I worry I have misplaced a child in the hurry to get everyone out of the door in the morning, or more likely, a boy is taking advantage of the situation.

Was that door slamming a boy going to school or a boy slamming the door so we think he’s gone to school, but he’s actually sneaked upstairs to go back to bed? I know I watched the youngest boy into the schoolyard, but did he make it to class or is he sat in a bush in the playground reading a CBeebies comic.

And what about the baby?

Perhaps I gave the cat to the childminder and the baby is asleep on the sofa.

As if these irrational fears weren’t enough, what about the rampaging army of false widow spiders heading our way? For those D&S readers who don’t also buy the Daily Mail, the spiders are relatives of the black widow, they are Britain’s most poisonous spider and they’re on the march north. When they reach Finghall, it will be like Culloden.

In other news this week, the route of the Tour de France has been announced. Apparently it will come through the Dales next year.

I’m not accusing anyone of shamelessly cashing in on the event, but there is surely a risk Wiggins will pedal into the national park wearing the yellow jersey and pedal out shirtless.