I’m watching my mother on television, an experience I never thought I’d have. Charlotte and the children are watching with me. Tom and Emily think it’s brilliant seeing Grandma on TV. I have to admit, I’m swelling with pride too. My mother is making an eloquent speech about her recent experience of coming back from God’s waiting room and becoming once more in full possession of her faculties.

Needless to say, the reaction to this news is dramatic. The whole world’s attention is yet again fixed on Evergreen Care Home. The news cuts to a picture of my mother arriving back there in a swish car, and having to be escorted, as we were, into the home through an even greater throng of journalists.

My mother ignores them all, though I can’t help feeling she’s rather enjoying the attention. She has a regal air about her, modelled, I suspect, on Queen Elizabeth the Second and Margaret Thatcher. Fair enough, I suppose.

Mr Jordan and his sidekick, Dr Morton – or should it be the other way round? – promise us the nanotech they’ve developed will be made available to all on the health service. I presume he’s done a deal and will now become incredibly rich. Again, fair enough. Everyone will benefit. He also announces we’ll be able to buy synthetic humans of various kinds soon, but despite a lot of questions from the journalists, he doesn’t say what they’ll be able to do, or how much they’ll cost. A packet, I should think.

The nanobots go a bit over the children’s heads, but they latch onto the idea of buying a synthetic human.

‘Can we have a Winifred of our own?’ asks Tom.

‘Oh, yes, I’d like that,’ says Emily.

I look at Charlotte, who rolls her eyes.

‘Why would we want one?’ I ask. ‘What would she do?’

‘Play with us when you’re too tired,’ says Emily.

‘Help me with my homework,’ says Tom. ‘She’d know all the answers.’

‘Do the housework so Mummy can have a rest,’ says Emily.

‘Now you’re talking,’ says Charlotte.

‘And then when you’re not tired anymore, we could all go out and do things while our Winifred looked after the house.’

‘She could carry us to school!’ says Emily. ‘Not as fast as when she ran with us though.’

‘Can we, Dad? Mum?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It might be expensive.’

‘I’ve got some money,’ says Emily, and she jumps up and runs upstairs, followed by Tom.

‘Is it me, or do you get the impression we may not be parenting at quite the level they want?’ I say.