NO matter how much we adore and are devoted to our children, there are times when we are desperate to get away from them.

Some of us dream of lying in bed after 6.30am. Or we may simply long to have a whole adult conversation, without being interrupted or forgetting what we were talking about mid-sentence because our heads are cluttered up with endless, banal lists of things to do.

Occasionally, just occasionally, we would like to go for a bracing walk without having to totter along at toddlers' pace, stopping every few minutes to admire slugs, kiss grazed knees or wipe snotty noses.

We imagine what it must be like to have our hands free, to stroll along a beach without being laden down with buckets, spades, fishing nets and fleeces, and to enjoy the rare sound of total silence, unbroken even by cries of "carry me" or "I need a wee".

And so, when my husband said he wanted to do the Lyke Wake Walk - a 42-mile trek from Osmotherley through the Cleveland Hills, across the moors and onto the coast at Ravenscar - with a few mates at the weekend, I was very understanding.

In fact, I was the model of generosity: "It'll be good for you. Don't worry about us, enjoy it. Do you want me to make you a packed lunch?" I said, seizing the chance to earn valuable Brownie points towards my own great escape, a weekend away with the girls in a few weeks' time, which I instantly started planning in my head.

And so, off he went, at one in the morning. He woke us all up in the process, but I didn't complain. "Have a good time," I smiled indulgently, dreaming of the long lie-in I would be claiming for myself some day soon.

He returned later in the evening, having finished the walk in an impressive 15 hours 45 minutes.

But then he made one, stupid, fatal mistake. As he walked through the door, before collapsing into a chair, he uttered the words: "I'm absolutely exhausted. I cannot move. Could somebody please get me a drink? I cannot possibly do a thing."

There was a combined, sharp intake of breath from the boys. They looked at their dad, they looked at me. Then their heads swung back and forwards between the two of us. Their dad's face froze as he realised his mistake.

And then, with a screech, I let rip: "Exhausted? You're exhausted?" Gone was the pleasantly amenable wife of this morning. Within seconds, I had transmogrified into a cross between a particularly outraged Ann Widdecombe and Vera Duckworth on the warpath.

I barely paused for breath: "I'll have you know my day started at 4am when I discovered Albert dangling out of his bedroom window pulling ivy from the wall." I was on a roll: "Then I had cricket training, a tennis tournament, two birthday party drop-off and pick-ups 20 miles apart, and an exhausted, surly 12-year-old to collect from an up-all-night stopover."

I didn't even touch on the meals, the laundry, tidying up, dealing with squabbles, various injuries, homework and exam revision testing.

This walker had gone one step too far, and he knew it: "Compared to looking after five boys on your own all day, heading off with a few mates on a 42 mile walk over beautiful, open countryside is my idea of pure bliss. But you say you're exhausted?" I did let him get a few words in: "But..., but..." and "but..."

It wasn't until the next morning, when I saw the awful blisters - one foot so bad his whole heel appeared to be hanging off - that I felt a bit guilty. But only a bit.

With an important business meeting in London to get to, he couldn't get one shoe on. So, wearing his smart, pin-stripe suit, he tried a polished brogue on one foot and a slip-on bedroom slipper on the other.

"Which looks best, one shoe and one slipper, or two matching slippers?" he asked as he shuffled pathetically towards me.

"If you wear just one slipper, you'll look forgetful and absent-minded, as if you're suffering from the early stages of dementia," I advised helpfully.

"On the other hand," I smiled. "If you wear both, you'll come across as forgetful and absent-minded, possibly suffering from early dementia." Well, I did say I only felt a bit guilty.

FOLLOWING my note about the funny new words children create, reader Peter Hankey of Bishop Auckland writes with son Nicholas's gems. I loved 'eyebrowns' for eyebrows and 'elbones' - "surely a better word than elbows," says Peter. And, if you're a granny who wears an anorak, Nicholas has just the right word: 'nanarack'. Annabel Andrew, from outside Ripon, has recently moved from the South. The family loves it here. But five-year-old Izzy has noticed a change in big brother William since he started at the local village school. "William's talking in a Yorkshire accident again," she complained recently.

Published: 07/07/2005