A confession from the weekend...

On Friday night I staggered in the door quite late and slightly inebriated after a boozy dinner with friends and I did something bad. My parents, who like to forget that they are in their sixties and should not be exerting themselves in such an irresponsible manner had not yet, as I assumed, returned home from their own dinner with friends and were not, as they should have been, tucked up in bed.

So when I bolted the door, I could never have known that in so doing I was locking out my errant parents and causing them to cough up 100 quid for the privilege of staying in a room normally reserved for guilty lovers at the local pub when their home – which they own and have lived in for twenty years – is a mere few hundred yards away.

I can see why they were slightly animated when I woke up and kindly let them in the following morning but as I said, they were out past their bedtime and sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind – they need discipline in their life or they will succumb to relentless activity.

They are lucky enough to receive for no fee an endless stream of idle thoughts, anecdotes, goodwill and general bonhomie in exchange for a place to live and write. All I ask is for a little consideration and that they are in their beds when they are supposed to be. Is that too much to ask?

Thankfully they have agreed to redouble their efforts and not be so active all the time. Dad, who has just become a student, is beginning to understand what John Lubbock meant when he wrote: "Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."

Have a lovely Sunday!