AFTER a quarter of a century of living in a crowded house – two adults and four kids – it’s rather nice to be alone once in a while.

And so, when it was announced that my wife was going to London for the weekend to spend some time with our daughter, and the boys were also going to be away for various reasons, I was quite looking forward to it.

Let’s my frank – I love them all to bits, but they get under my feet and irritate my eardrums. I have to wait an hour to get into the bathroom. I have to listen to drumming practice and blaring music without proper tunes. I have to sit through telly programmes which don’t interest me.

My wife is an habitual early-riser and she makes a lot of noise in the process. There seems to be an unspoken expectation that if she’s up, I might as well be up too.

But the weekend exodus meant I could get up when I wanted to on Saturday morning, without being disturbed.

I could have a long bath without having to wait in a queue. I could watch what I wanted to on the TV. Eat rubbish. Drink a bit more than usual. And not have to worry about tidying up straight away.

I took my wife to the train station on Friday morning and kissed her goodbye.

“You won’t be lonely will you?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine,” I replied, knowing that I would be more than fine – I would be in heaven.

On my way home from work that night, I bought a takeaway – just for me. I lined up a few beers, watched my kind of telly, and left my plate on the lounge floor when I went to bed, just for the hell of it.

I had the whole king-sized bed to aim at and there was no need to worry about getting too close to her and “emitting heat”.

I grabbed an extra pillow from her side. There was no need to set an alarm and I promised myself that it would be at least 10am before I got up.

I don’t remember the last time I’d slept so deeply, but the downstairs phone woke me up as the light was coming in through the window. I glanced at the clock – it was 7.15am. Something must be wrong.

I flew downstairs and grabbed the phone. It was my Mum: “Hello, son, I was just checking that you’re all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I replied. “Why?”

“Well, with you being on your own – I was a bit worried,” she said.

I stood in the kitchen, trying to understand why I should get a 7.15am phone call from my 84-year-old mother because she’s worried I won’t be able to cope on my own.

I’m 53!

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANK you to Pauline Dowse, of Richmond, who told me how she loves to spend time with her four-year-old grandson, watching the birds coming into her garden.

Pauline always puts food out for the birds, but seems to get a lot of crows. When he sees them, her grandson immediately shouts: “Get away you blumming croaks.”

IN my last Dad At Large column, I told how my little niece, Isabella, had asked her dad if she could have some candy floss.

“No, it’s bad for your teeth,” he replied. “Well, can I have some popcorn?” she asked.

“No, it’ll make you fat,” he told her. Isabella sighed and said: “Well, can we do a deal – can I have some pop-candy?”

The story reminded my mum of the time I was a little boy and we’d been to the seaside with my Uncle Bert and Auntie Vi.

We’d passed some other kids with candy floss on a stick and I’d asked if I could have some.

My mum went off to find a sweet shop and came back with some candy floss – but it was in a polythene bag.

I immediately burst into tears and whined: “But I wanted candy floss on a dick!”