YOU can’t care for people in 15 minutes. It just can’t be done. But increasingly, that’s all that many old or disabled people are getting, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

By the time a carer has phoned in to say they’ve arrived and filled in the paperwork, there’s barely time to help someone wash, dress, go to the loo or take their medicine. Certainly no time for a proper chat before the carer has to dash off again - – probably without being paid for travel time or petrol either.

How did we get in this mess?

It’s not the carers’ fault. Many of them still manage to do an amazing job. Most of them are agency workers, desperate to do what they can and for not much more than the minimum wage.

And it’s going to get worse. The number of people over 85 is going to double in the next decade.

Then there are all the baby boomers now approaching the foothills of old age... When they all need help in ten years or 20 years’ time even a regular 15 minutes is going to seem like luxury.

So while we still can, we’re going to have to take responsibility for our own lives. My husband and I have a whisky jar into which we throw small change as savings for eventual trips, treats and as holiday spending.

Maybe we should save it instead for the longer term – one day being able to pay someone to help us to the toilet could be the biggest treat of all.

RAPE in Downton Abbey? That shook the Sunday night cosiness.

We didn’t see that one coming, did we? I’ll be watching the Great British Bake Off more warily in future – just in case Mary Berry’s packing a pistol under one of her snazzy jackets.

I’VE spent an hour in the attic, perched on a bin bag full of old curtains, meeting old friends. The time has come to dig out the boys’ childhood books for the granddaughter.

And there, waiting patiently after all these years, next to the Brio railway and an awful lot of Lego, were Alfie and Annie Rose, Burglar Bill, Mrs Plug the Plumber, Ivor the Engine, Topsy and Tim, Spot, Postman Pat, The Cops and the Robbers, and The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate. Plus a lot of others, a bit battered and dog-eared, but still very readable.

Children’s books are magical.

They give so much delight and they soak into those tiny infant brains, open up their world and give them a treasure trove of songs and stories, a way with words and memories that last a lifetime.

A few weeks ago there was another of those surveys telling us that parents don’t read to their children any more. Shame on them.

It’s not only fun for the kids, but a treat for parents. And, I hope I’m about to discover, for grannies too.

IS Durham Tees Valley (DTV) Airport about to disappear up its own slipstream? I used to love it when it was Teesside Airport.

They had flights to London and didn’t have sneaky extra charges.

It was small and friendly and easy.

Not any more.

It is only scheduled flights now are to Aberdeen and Amsterdam.

And why should I pay £457 to fly from Durham Tees Valley to Amsterdam with KLM when I can nip down the road to Leeds Bradford and go for £37 with Jet2?

They’re going to have to do an awful lot to DTV to tempt us back again.