There are places I visit that I would never dream of going to if I didn’t have kids. For example today, a burger bar complete with formica tables, bright posters of impossibly coloured meals, the smell of grease drifting around like mist and the general background babble of family noise with children’s high pitched giggles and wails. Waitresses with baseball caps and butcher style aprons writing on miniscule pads with stubby pencils. Chips, burgers and loads of ketchup and hot sweet tea. Thoughts of where I’d rather be..the corner of an old pub with a log fire, a Salad Nicoise and huge glass of red wine, or a little bistro with attentive waiter, superb pasta and a carafe of said wine.

I find myself freezing on the sidelines of football - which bores me to tears - when I would rather be jogging along a beach, or kicking leaves on a woodland walk.

I visit public toilets and try to ensure Chloe touches as little as possible. Once outside I insist she, and the boys rewipe their hands with sanitizing gel and wet wipes. I would just wait cross legged, till I reached home.

I walk down great cold white supermarket aisles heaving with toilet rolls or baked beans and pile a trolley with huge boxes of cereal, canned tuna, frozen fish fingers and squash, aware that were I single I would visit the greengrocer and a smart upmarket store, or even shop online to get the basics while I visited the greengrocer or local farmers market to stock up on fresh locally sourced vegetables, meat and fish.

I trawl great shoe and clothes department stores instead of select boutiques.

I go bowling and putting, visit play parks, and child friendly pubs with play areas instead of playing tennis or golf, visiting art galleries or the theatre and sitting at a tavern in a well known beauty spot.

But I revel in family moments of hysterical laughter, impossibly complicated board games, cosy cups of hot chocolate and story time before bed, sweaty hugs that clutch me wholeheartedly, the shared pool of humour which only we understand, the ragged messy, chaos of love as we each spill into each other’s lives, instead of sitting tidy, clean, cultured, elegant and alone.