Last Saturday morning our friend Jake phoned in a state of panic. He was working away from home and was desperately trying to contact his wife, Rafia, to wish her a happy birthday.

"I've phoned six times and she's not yet picked up the receiver," he said. "I'm a little worried. Could you pop round to see if she's all right?"

It was nearly 10am, and since Rafia was looking after their toddler and baby and was bound to have been woken at least three hours earlier, I joined him in his anxiety.

"I'm going right now," I said, grabbing their spare keys (which we have in case of emergencies) and shouting a garbled message to my husband about a "mercy mission".

On my way, I also tried phoning Rafia and, like Jake, only received the answering machine. When I got to their front door I was tempted to let myself in. But because I'm British, I knocked first.

A couple of seconds later, Rafia opened the door, the babe in her arms and the toddler toddling behind. They all looked the picture of health.

Whatever we may have feared, there was no sign of a bloodbath, a gas explosion or abduction by creatures from outer space.

"I'm so sorry Jacqui, this is quite ridiculous," said Rafia, letting me in.

"I've just spoken to Jake and explained that we all slept in till eight and I've been too busy sorting out the children to take any calls."

We then listened to all six messages left by Jake. They began with Jake jovially singing happy birthday to his darling wife and ended with a fraught command: "Rafia, pick up the phone now. I am seriously worried about what is going on.

Rafia is saving all the messages for posterity, although I doubt Jake wants to be reminded of the morning when, having felt guilty for working at a time when he probably should have been at home, he then started imagining something dreadful had happened to his beloveds.

"The irony is that, had it been any other morning, he would probably have left one message and then not thought any more about it," said Rafia.

In these circumstances I think Jake's concern was only natural but it seems fairly common that men jump to the worst conclusions first before considering reasons why their women aren't readily available at the end of a phone.

I was once an hour and a half longer at the shops than I said I would be and had forgotten to switch on my mobile.

I returned home just in time to stop my husband checking the casualty units and mobilising a police helicopter search of the North Laine.

My dad does the same to my mum. He calls her every evening to say he's "about to leave the office," which isn't any sort of guarantee unless she doesn't answer, at which point he rushes home immediately.

My mum's usual reason is that she didn't hear the phone because she was vacuuming, an activity so alien to my father that it would never occur to him to be the probable scenario.