IT’S never easy thinking of presents for my wife – but I really think I excelled myself this time. Forget the usual last-minute bunch of garage flowers and a quick lunchtime dash to Thornton’s for a box of chocolates, I masterminded a much better surprise for Mother’s Day.

One of my wife’s favourite things in the whole world is our daughter, Hannah. Naturally, she adores her three sons but she only has one daughter and they’re closer than Ant and Dec.

So, with outstanding thoughtfulness and brilliance, that’s what I got her for Mother’s Day. I delivered Hannah. The plotting started months in advance...

Step 1: I arranged for Hannah to catch an early morning train from London, where she works as a dancer. Naturally, I paid the fare.

Step 2: I told my wife that I had to open a church fete so I wouldn’t be able to join her for our usual Saturday morning mixed doubles at the tennis club.

Step 3: I dropped my wife off at the club and told her I’d be back to pick her up after I’d opened the fete.

Step 4: I drove to Darlington railway station to collect my daughter who was very excited at being the centre of such subterfuge.

Step 5: Hannah had to lie down in the car so she couldn’t be spotted when I drove back to the tennis club.

Step 6: She had to wait for the precise moment my wife was at the net, with her back to the clubhouse, and embroiled in a rally. At my signal she crawled out of the car and ran into the clubhouse, where she hid on the floor behind a settee.

(It has to be said that the operation, planned with military precision, was nearly ruined when Anne, one of the women my wife was playing against, blurted out: “Was that your Hannah going into the clubhouse?”

Anne’s like that. Luckily, my wife ignored her. “No, Hannah’s in London this weekend,” she replied, and carried on playing.) Step 7: While I acted as if nothing was happening and watched the remainder of my wife’s match, Hannah stayed scrunched up on the floor for more than half an hour, under strict instructions not to move. (I’d wanted to hide her in the broom cupboard, but she refused.) Step 8: When my wife ended her match and came into the clubhouse with her fellow players for a coffee, she still suspected nothing.

Step 9: Hannah leapt up from behind the settee and declared “Happy Mother’s Day!”

Step 10: As my wife wiped tears from her eyes and hugged her only daughter, I might just have said something like: “I planned it all – aren’t I good?”

They had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend together: shopping, eating, watching girlie things on TV, and catching up. Me? I was in the good books – for at least a couple of hours.

The things they say

AT a meeting of Stokesley Friendship Group, Barbara Phillips told of the time her son Christopher, six at the time, was sent to bed early for being naughty. “You’re not allowed to come down until you go to school tomorrow,” she shouted.

At 7pm, Christopher shouted down the stairs that he was hungry, so his mum, whose temper had subsided, took his tea up to him.

A short while later, Christopher was being naughty again so his mum warned: “You’d better behave or I’ll send you to bed again.”

Christopher didn’t seem too alarmed. He paused and then said: “I think I’ll carry on being naughty because I like having my tea in bed.”

THANK you to Terry Storey, a key member of Darlington Operatic Society, for telling me about the time he was camping with his grandchildren in the Lake District.

He’d taken his two eldest grandsons canoeing on Ullswater and, after a short while, he heard a commotion behind him. His grand-daughter Jessica, four, had waded out to meet them and was waist-deep, with her submerged hands on her hips.

Her mum was shouting in panic from the shore but Jessica calmly declared: “But I’ve got my wellies on. You said I could paddle if I had my wellies on.”

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