MY other half will most probably have stopped smarting after last week’s column by now, but I have no news to report yet on if it has positively affected him.

It might help tackle his iPhone addiction and it might not, but it was worth a shot. And, for information, I did offer him a right to reply, which he turned down.

I have suggested that he moan about me for a change in this section a number of times over the years, but he has always refused – and I think I know why.

Being a man, he shrugs off the bulk of what I write about him and, as I point out, it’s nothing I haven’t already said to his face. Usually, he finds it hilarious and enjoys telling his work colleagues what his ranting fishwife has been saying now.

Being a woman, if he wrote a column criticising me, I’d read it, memorise it and use it for blackmail/ my own ends generally for the entire duration of the rest of our married lives.

But I do need to be nice to him for a while, as he’s soon to have to the company of yet another woman in our house, his mother-in-law.

To help us out during half-tem - as our daughter is a very particular young lady sometimes, we can’t send her to meet a bunch of new people for a week at a holiday club – my good old mum is coming to stay.

My husband will then have four females to put up with: our daughter, me, my mum, and our cat. The latter’s contribution to the chaos of our house cannot be underestimated, with her begging, parading in and out and in and out again, and her occasional neurotic outbursts, but more about her some other time!

Half-term also happens to be the week of my mother’s birthday, and our daughter’s, so it’s all going to be going on round our way.

I do really want to spoil mum, as she is helping us out a lot and I know how much our daughter will benefit from their time together.

It’ll be exhausting, but enjoyable, here’s hoping, and I am sure that by the time I arrive home from work each day, they will be reporting to me all the fun they had singing songs, putting jewellery on teddy bears, talking nonsense and all of the other things they seem to get up to.

Last time mum came, they were chanting silly spells over potions of rose petals and, as I peeked at the kitchen table where it was all happening, I saw my daughter look at my mum with such open adoration that it broke my heart.

I know that the contribution of my mum and dad to my daughter’s life is invaluable and inestimable, a bounty of that selfless, uncritical love that grandparents provide.

For as long as it’s available, we’ll revel in it.