IT’S that time of year when dads of a certain age are expected to drop everything and drive round the country to move their offspring back home from university for Christmas.

Jack, our third-born, had left a message to say he’d been told to have his stuff out of his room and hand in the key by 10am last Saturday. That mean a 7am start for me, with a three-hour drive down the A1 through murky winter weather.

The day before I was due to get him, I phoned to check the arrangements hadn’t changed.

The first time I rang, he didn’t pick up. And when he didn’t answer my message, I called back an hour later. This time he answered.

“Hi, Dad, is it important?” he asked, impatiently.

“Well, I just wanted to check the arrangements for coming down tomorrow,” I explained.

I’m pretty sure I detected a sigh before he said: “What do you need to know? It’s a bit difficult to talk at the moment - I’m playing corridor cricket.”

In the background, I heard someone shouting “Come on, Jack. Put the phone down.”

Undeterred, I pressed on: “I just need to know if I still need to be there by 10am and where I can park.”

“Dad, I’m bowling and we’re in the middle of a crucial over,” came the reply.

The shouts in the background were getting louder and Jack declared that he’d have to go and would text me “the details” later.

Now, I’m a pretty easy-going kind of dad and I don’t mind running around after my kids. But I admit to feeling pretty taken for granted at times, and this was one of them.

There I was, preparing to get up at the crack of dawn to drive for six hours, there and back, and he was too busy playing corridor cricket.

Despite the temptation to let him get home under his own steam, I set out on the long drive the following morning and arrived in time to move him out of his room.

He must have sensed that I was a bit peeved because he launched straight into an expanation about the corridor cricket.

The students on his floor had been challenged by the students on the floor below. It was England versus Sri Lanka and it was four runs for hitting the back wall of the corridor with a plastic ball and six if it made the wall without bouncing.

“England won - I bowled really well,” he told me.

He seemed to think that would appease me: that an England victory had made my long journey worthwhile.

I’m just glad that an expensive university education is helping him put things in better perspective.

THE THINGS GRANDADS SAY

I WAS having my pre-Christmas haircut and, knowing how much haidresser Nigel Dowson dotes on his little grandson, I asked: “Are you having Blake for Christmas?”

“No, turkey,” came the reply.

THE THINGS KIDS SAY

AFTER being told to quieten down by his mam, Harvey Westcott, eight, of Middlesbrough, said: “Why did God give me a loud voice?”