Senior Son was home for Easter. You may have heard him. Two boys do not make twice as much noise as one.

They make about ten times. And then a bit more. As soon as Senior Son crashed through the door, fell against the standard lamp, knocked the papers off the table and a picture off the wall, the decibels soared.

Smaller Son has some friends round too. They were going out on the razz in Darlington. Senior Son was meeting up with his mates in Richmond. Phones rang. Mobiles beeped. The television was on downstairs, the television was on upstairs, every light in the house was on, stereos blared, doors slammed.

They tried to conduct arguments from inside the shower, above the noise of water and through two doors. A dripping boy in towels came down and set up the ironing board in the hall. Another lad home from university turned up on the doorstep hoping for a haircut and was absorbed into the chaos.

Husband - who is never normally home at this hour - manoeuvred past the ironing board and found two strange young men playing computer games in the study.

"Don't ask." I said.

Not expecting Senior Son home (The first I'd known was an answerphone message from somewhere on the M62), I'd booked a visiting friend into his room so had to offer the spare room instead. Spare room knee deep in Things I Am Sorting Out. Threw everything onto one bed and cleared pathway to the other.

Senior Son was rifling through the Tesco's bags for something to eat. Smaller Son was rifling through the ironing basket for some socks. The televisions, stereos, computer and mobiles all still bleeped and rang.

Then there was a spirited discussion about whose car they were taking to where and at what time. Much shouting about who was ready and who was keeping the other waiting and if it was the other way round THEN there'd be a fuss.

Finally they went, the house still shuddering from the shock of it all. Senior Son came home the next morning just as I was going swimming. At breakfast, there was a strange young man in boxer shorts in the kitchen and my boys were arguing because they both wanted the same newspaper.

On Saturdays we have ten papers delivered to the house. You'd think, wouldn't you, it would be enough.

And so it went on all weekend. Something about Senior Son's presence causes cushions to fall off sofas, newspapers to disintegrate in the bath, orange juice to fling itself from the carton all across the kitchen and congeal stickily just where I put something down.

Then suddenly on Sunday afternoon, with a final argument about the origin of the word "Caucasian", they were gone. Senior Son bundled his possessions into a bin bag (Of course we have plenty of suitcases and travelbags, but what's that got to do with it?) and went back to Manchester and an evening as a DJ and Smaller Son went off to work.

Their father and I viewed the debris. There were five soggy towels, two empty glasses and a lager bottle in Senior Son's room. After the noise and arguments of the previous few days, you could actually feel the silence. All a bit unnerving really.

And, of course I'll just have got nicely used to it and it will all be shattered again.