MY daughter has moved into a new flat in London. You know the kind of thing – smaller than a broom cupboard, but the rent’s higher than the cost of living in a mansion up north.

There isn’t even a lounge – just a barely-furnished kitchen Hannah shares with three other flatmates, and it’s in desperate need of a settee.

As luck would have it, her Grandma (my mum) had a spare settee at her house in Middlesbrough – a red leather recliner from Barker & Stonehouse no less – so yours truly was called into action.

“Da-a-a-a-d,” she said. (They always make the word “Dad” longer and sing it when they want something, don’t they?) “You know that spare settee Grandma has? Do you think it’ll fit in your car?”

And so began the latest job for Dad’s Taxi – transport a settee from Middlesbrough to London. Distance – 244.8 miles. Agreed price – nothing.

The first task was to measure the settee and check that a) it would fit into my Vauxhall Zafira and b) that it would get through Hannah’s front door, up her narrow staircase, and into her tiny kitchen.

My tape measure told me it would be tight, but that we should just about be able to do it, so my strategy began to unfold.

Step one was to get it from my mum’s house in Middlesbrough to our house in Darlington, ready for the journey to London the following weekend.

My brother John was duly recruited and, for nearly an hour, we huffed, puffed and dripped with sweat as we manoeuvred the settee out of my mum’s dining room and into the back of my car.

It is a very heavy settee and my brother John isn’t what you’d call the sort cut out for manual labour. It was like The Chuckle Brothers getting a job with Pickfords – “Me, to you” – with Grandma directing from the side and generally getting in the way.

We finally squeezed the settee into the car, but only by putting the back seats down and pushing the front seats so far forward that I had to drive back to Darlington with my knees under my chin, and stop halfway in a layby to walk off chronic cramp.

Upon arrival in Darlington, I had our third-born, Jack, 22, to help me lift the settee out of the car and into our house.

It’s fair to say that my son was even more useless than my brother. At one point, as I scraped my knuckles on the door-handle, I could take no more and I dropped the settee on my big toe.

Despite it all, we heroically managed to manouvre the settee in our lounge. I sat down on it, dizzy with exhaustion, and took my sock off to see that my big toe was already turning black.

It was later that evening that Hannah sent my wife the following text: “Tell Dad he doesn’t need to worry about the settee now – someone was throwing one out down here and it fits perfectly.”

The things they say

MOLLY, three, was talking to mum Helen Russell at bedtime in Darlington.

“Do you know, Molly, you always make me laugh,” said Helen.

“That’s because I’ve got funny words in my tummy,” came the reply.

SLIGHTLY x-rated this one, but just remember it’s the innocence of children… Ethan, three, of Middlesbrough, put on his serious face at bedtime and said to his dad, Matt: “Dad, my winkie is getting bigger – it’s almost touching the ceiling!”

ANNIE, six, of Durham, had been a bit naughty, so her dad, John, had felt the need to give her a ticking off.

“I was really quite stern with her,” John told me.

Annie sighed, shrugged her shoulders, and replied: “I don’t know who you think you are.”