IT is one of the enduring mysteries of my life – how do women manage to fit so much into confined spaces?

Whether it’s getting the shopping into the fridge, packing suitcases for holidays, or filling the dishwasher, women are magicians at fitting it all in.

When us men try to do it, there’s always something that won’t fit, but when women take over, minor miracles occur.

I witnessed one such miracle just last night. I’d had a cup of tea and I went to put it in the dishwasher but, I swear to God, it was completely chock-a-block.

I put my mug on the side to be hand-washed the next morning but my wife walked over, tutted, then managed to squeeze it into the dishwasher by rearranging a few things. Quite incredible.

There was an even bigger miracle at the weekend when our youngest, Max, went back to university in Manchester.

I love him dearly but I was all in favour of his decision to go back early because it meant our lounge being cleared of all the clutter he’d brought back with him in June.

He’d argued that there was no point taking it upstairs to his room because a) it was only a matter of weeks until it had to be carted back to Manchester and b) he didn’t want to be “cramped for space”.

The garage wasn’t an option because it’s already full of rubbish, and my suggestion that his stuff should be stored in the garden shed was shot down in flames by my wife on the grounds that it would be at the mercy of mice.

Max’s mountain of mess has, therefore, been stacked at the back of our lounge for the past three months. But, mercifully, his declaration that he wanted to go back to Manchester ahead of schedule gave me the chance to reclaim my territory.

While my wife did some last-minute supermarket shopping to stock him up for life in his new shared student hovel, it was my job to load the car, ready for the drive back to Manchester.

Drums, guitars, keyboards, clothes, duvets, pillows, computers, boxes of records, picture frames, pots and pans and crockery – you name it, it all had to squeeze into my Vauxhall Zafira, with its back seats laid flat.

But, try as I might, there was no way it would all fit in. I rearranged it all three times, but it was Mission Impossible.

“He’ll have to leave some of his stuff here – it won’t all go in,” I groaned to my wife when she arrived back from the supermarket with his “essentials” (including a crate of beer).

“I’ll do it,” she replied, letting out one of those deep sighs she’s perfected.

“Look, I’m telling you, it won’t go in,” I repeated. “I’ve tried it all kinds of different ways. We’ll have to do two trips.”

She sighed again and examined the contents of the car, her eyes narrowing as her brain went into analysis mode. One by one, every item was taken back out of the car and laid on the pavement. She then started to put them all back in and, by some kind of black magic, they all fitted with space to spare.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“By using my brain,” she replied.

And that’s the bottom line – mums just have a different type of brain to us dads. They have more spatial awareness.

Us dads obviously have brains that give us superiority in other areas. I just can’t remember what they are.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANK you to Lesley Cain-Metcalf for getting in touch to make me smile with a lovely memory of her husband Tony, a much-loved former colleague of ours at The Northern Echo, who died far too early.

When their son Alex was about seven, the family were sitting around the Sunday dinner table.

Tony was exasperated by Alex's total lack of attention to anything he’d been told that day and said: “Alex, you have to pull your head out of the clouds laddie! How on earth are you going to get through life?”

Alex's calm response (before putting a roast potato in his mouth) was simple: “Dad, I’ll do what you did - get myself a wife.”

THANKS also to Paul Frost, former Tyne Tees TV presenter, who is enjoying being a grandad.

His six-year-old grandson Gabriel was doing a homework project and asked Paul: “Grandad, which was your favourite seaside place and how did you travel there?”

“Whitby and we often went on the train,” replied Paul.

“Was that in Victorian times?” asked Gabriel.