Casimir continues placidly reading the biography of Freddie Flintoff (while other people’s children always seem to have their noses in a Penguin Classic, my beloved only son’s limited thirst for literature is quenched only by sporting biographies and the literary output of Jeremy Clarkson).

Posy, another one of my children who has also, strangely, never exhibited the ‘rage to learn’ that other mothers are always discovering, to their apparent consternation, in their severely gifted children, has finally put away as childish her collection of moist cleansing wipes, which was her pride and joy until her eighth year, and is now sorting by size and shape her extensive collection of travel-size toiletries – mainly shampoo, body lotion and bubble bath, but with a few prized sewing kits and shower caps – a collection which has spread to three shoe-boxes.

Ralph is in the sitting room, occasionally poking the fire. I am going round the playroom, collecting empty cups and yoghurt pots, banana skins and apple cores, and muttering. Mirabel is sitting at the PC in the playroom, which I have removed from her bedroom and placed with the screen facing out, according to the diktats from the government about ‘keeping safe online’, a transfer of only a few metres which Mirabel announced had ruined her entire life. Ana has gone to the pub. Garry and Debbie have taken her under their wing, a development that makes me wonder whether they are intending to poach her from under my nose, and whether I would mind very much if they did.

And I am planning to give Ralph a lovely home-cooked special supper à deux, and break the news that, in due course, we will be a family not of five (well, seven, if you’re Posy and include Trumpet and Calypso), but six.

‘What do you mean, “scraping”?’ I say, coming up behind Mirabel’s left shoulder.

She clicks at the corner of the screen and then says something into her headset. ‘It’s only my mum, Spike,’ she says, and then glowers at me, while hammering out a message in an open-chat area of the screen, photo-shopping a picture of herself that she is adding to her Bebo page, while at the same time Googling something about Hadrian’s Wall for her history homework. She is clearly online to Spike, who must be at a friend’s house because, as we all know, there is no running water or electricity, let alone internet café with coffee bar, at Spodden’s Hatch. ‘Mum, do you have to embarrass me all the time? Why did you, like, deliberately walk into shot? You know I’ve got the webcam on! It’s, like, so embarrassing if Spike thinks you’re around when I’m talking to him.’

While we are talking, my eye runs over a snatch of the chat exchange that was taking place, with someone called seximonki14, in a little box in the corner.