AFTER a great deal of debate about where we should go for our summer holiday, we have opted for Cornwall.

Yes, I know we’re taking a chance with the British weather, but Cornwall is somewhere we’ve never been, so I’m really looking forward to it.

All four children are coming with us, even though Hannah, 20, has already had a girls’ holiday to Turkey, and 18-year-old Jack has had a lads’ holiday in Bulgaria.

I got a very nice “I love Turkey” T-shirt from Hannah, but I haven’t been able to wear it due to the fact that she bought child-sized by mistake because she was in a rush to catch the plane.

“I’m quite surprised you still want to come on holiday with us,” I said to the kids over Sunday lunch.

“Yeah, well it’s free – of course we wanna come,” replied Jack, as if I was stupid.

Anyway, my wife went on the internet, found a house for six, close to a place called Saltash, and we are due to set off this coming Saturday.

Except we won’t all be travelling together.

A few days after she booked the house, my wife announced out of the blue: “Oh, by the way, just to let you know, I’ve bought the train tickets for Cornwall.”

“Train tickets? What train tickets?” I asked, more than a little puzzled because one of the reasons we’d chosen Cornwall was because we’d be able to use our own car instead of going to the expense of hiring one.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” she replied.

“I thought I and the kids could go by train and you could drive down with the luggage.”

Actually, she’s not quite as hardhearted as she might have been. It turned out that she’d only booked train tickets for herself, Max, 15, Jack, 18, and Hannah, 20. It has been decreed that Christopher, 22 – alias The Big Friendly Giant – has to keep me and the luggage company on the seven-hour car journey south.

So while I and the BFG are making our way down the motorways of Britain, and sitting in the inevitable traffic jams, the other four will be relaxing on the Plymouth-bound train, reading books and playing games.

At first, I was a bit peeved. What am I, I asked myself: an integral part of the family, or some kind of cheap courier service?

But then I started to think of the benefits. I won’t have to put up with bad-tempered attempts to squeeze too many bags into the boot; back seat driving instructions from my wife; squabbles over whose turn it is to play their music; and constant questions about how far there is to go.

I’ll be setting off at the crack of dawn so the BFG is guaranteed to be comatose all the way and I should be able to do exactly as I please.

The idea is that we rendezvous at Plymouth railway station for the short drive to our rented house.

Unless she’s arranged for me to stay in a tent with the luggage that is.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

AT a meeting of Great Stainton WI, one of the members, who prefers to remain anonymous, remembered the time she was on a bus in Darlington.

A little girl wanted a new toy and kept pestering her mum.

“No, you can’t have it,” replied the mum.

“Well, shouted the girl at the top of her voice. “if you won’t let me have it, I’ll tell Dad you weed in the new bucket.”

CHRISTINE Briscoe recalled daughter Victoria being in a playgroup at Fairfield, Stockton, and the children were telling the story of the Nativity.

It was in the days when Some Mother’s Do ’Av ’Em was on the telly and Victoria announced that the Three Wise Men brought Gold, Frank Spencer and myrrh.

CHRISTINE’S son Richard hated sprouts and, when he was three, he declared: “If God had wanted me to eat sprouts, he’d have made me like them.” There’s no answer to that.