"I'm sure it's nearer than it was yesterday," said Thomas, looking wistfully from the window of our holiday home at mobile phone mast in near distance.

"I can assure you it will be in exactly the same place as it always has been," I told him. "No one ever heard of a moving phone mast."

"Come and have a look," he persisted. "I know it can't be, but it does actually look closer today. It must be the fog or something."

I looked and to me it looked as near or as far as it had been for the rest of week, (I certainly wasn't going to admit that the mist rolling in off the sea gave the impression of closeness) but then I wasn't obsessed with it, as I'd been planning a week away from phone fax and emails, and therefore hadn't paid it much attention, whereas Thomas was.

The reason for his obsession was he'd never really been planning to participate in what was supposed to be a family holiday and so had brought with him his laptop and mobile phone, hoping to be able to escape from the chaos that is three small children by needing to attend to some urgent email or call.

The cottage in which we were staying however conspired to make this impossible.

Although there was a phone, which received incoming calls and allowed us to make emergency and local calls, it didn't allow Thomas's laptop to connect with the AOL number which would have allowed him to access his email.

He spent several frustrating hours trying different numbers but all without success and eventually resorted to walking around the harbour in search of a place which might provide internet access.

But this was deepest Cornwall and when he cornered unsuspecting locals and asked; "Is there an internet cafe or anywhere I can get internet access in the area?" he might as well have been asking if they knew of anywhere where you could sacrifice young children (we were tempted at times), for the total looks of incomprehension and horror they gave him in return.

"You'll not find any of that dot com business in these parts," a fisherman told him, firmly, before adding: "Tides coming in. Your little ones will be washed away if they carry on playing there."

So in order to keep open a line of escape, if he failed in drowning the little ones and was forced to play Mousetrap one more time, he resorted to trying to make phone calls, but here too was frustrated by the total lack of reception which, as our sea view was partly obscured by a whopping great mobile phone mast, was particularly irksome.

Nevertheless, Thomas kept his phone switched on and as we were driving round twisting country roads every now and then, and usually on a blind bend, the call back facility would bleep into action and then go dead again, as we reached anywhere it might have been safe to actually stop the car.

Eventually he abandoned any attempts to make contact with a world which concerned itself with things other than how many mice had been trapped and who had the most sand in their chips and began to enjoy clotted cream and paddling.

And it was paddling which miraculously brought him into an area of crystal clear reception.

As he was knee deep in the Camel Estuary, with baby Rugrat on shoulders and others holding tight to hands (we'd taken the being washed away warning seriously) it began ringing loud and clear. But as soon as Thomas returned to shore it stopped again.

"Tides coming in. Your husband will be washed away," observed a man walking his dog along the shoreline, as Thomas waded in deeper and deeper ...