Daughter and I had a bit of a girlie week this week as him indoors was away visiting his brother.

For daughter, this meant she could watch all the programmes she wanted to on the TV.

She also decided to sleep in our bed 'in case you get lonely Mum'. For me this meant I didn't get to watch any TV programmes I wanted to watch at all.

It also meant I got to go to sleep each night on the 12ins triangle in the corner of the bed that daughter kindly left me for me.

I had forgotten just how uncomfortable it is sharing a bed with a child as it is some years since the days when she regularly visited our room.

Each night she arranged herself, a few soft toys, the dog and her book and then shuffle everything around until everything and everybody was comfortable.

I would retire a few hours later to find I had a small spot in one corner with no duvet or pillows.

She then spent the rest of the night waking me up to tell me to stop snoring.

I do not believe I snore, at least nothing like her impersonation of me snoring, or her dad would have chucked me out of the bedroom years ago. Anyway, she snores herself while lying sprawled flat on her back.

The dog spent all night either scratching or making really deep sighing noises.

When I tried to make him sleep on the landing so I could have a bit more space he whimpered and scratched at the door until I let him in again.

All in all, I got up each morning after about two and a half hours sleep feeling absolutely wrecked.

We also had to get up early each day to make sure we had the time to take the dog for a decent walk before we left him shut up for the day.

I decided there is nothing like the joys of walking the dog round the streets park at 6am in the pitch dark while the wind and rain howls around you and daughter follows behind muttering 'I am still a child. I should be in bed. You are cruel. I am sleepy'.

I must admit by the end of the week she did actually say she had quite enjoyed our early morning excursions.

I myself prefer them in the summertime to be honest.

Then there was the joys of daughter's karaoke rehearsal.

This was a song and dance routine she and some friends had devised to perform at school for some lunchtime thing they do.

Luckily, we had the CD of the song they were performing so we could set it to play/repeat and listen to it 50 times in a row.

This meant daughter could definitely learn all the words and so could I and so could the dog and so could our long suffering neighbours.

On the day they had to perform their piece daughter went off to school loaded down with things to change into, things to make her hair curl and the words to the song printed out enough times for an orchestra.

Apparently it all went well and she returned home pleased with their performance.

I suppose the good bits were there was much less washing up than usual, and we lived on pasta for dinner and chocolate for pudding which made meal times easy.

She also helped me cart everything down to the launderette as although the man did turn up to mend the washing machine last weekend, he didn't bring the right parts with him.

Him indoors returned at the end of the week looking nice and relaxed after his week away. 'Have you had a nice rest?' he said, 'I did, it was great sleeping without you snoring all night.'