FOR just over three weeks of this summer, I will have been working from home whilst simultaneously looking after our five-year-old.

It’s a set of circumstances which has been forced on us because, for reasons which I won’t go into at present, our daughter was unable to attend a holiday club.

My parents would have loved to help out, but of course they are too far away.

They were really keen to have her, and suggested flying her over to Northern Ireland, but it would have been just too costly and too complicated.

I hope that in future when she’s older she can enjoy a few weeks of the summer with them as I am sure they will all get a lot from it.

Throughout the summer, I have seen lots of grandparents out and about in Basingstoke and beyond tackling the unenviable task of entertaining their grandchildren, whatever the weather has thrown at them.

So I have been spending my days at home doing my job – thanks to modern technology - whilst also, among other things, listening to the same jokes 50 times, trying to tune out CBeebies and making ham sandwiches on demand.

But I’m not going to complain; I consider myself very fortunate that this option has been available to us, thanks to the help and support I have received from my colleagues, particularly our news editor Chris. I very much appreciate the trust he has placed in me re this scenario.

After many years of working, it has actually been quite easy to manage. I know what I have to do, and multitasking a little, after all, comes naturally to a woman (wink wink). I can be in the middle of saving a document, writing an email or uploading to the web and, at the same time, I will be answering one of the myriad questions – Why is grass green? Why do rabbits love carrots? – which is being rapidly fired at me by the small person.

I can also take momentary breaks from the computer to put on a load of washing, to pack the dishwasher or to plan the evening meal. Or I can do a two minute tidy of the living room while I am waiting for a response to a work query.

If my other half ever has to work from home, he does it in a typically male manner i.e. focusing on just one thing, the working.

He plonks himself at the kitchen table and sits there for the day, rising only to feed himself with whatever food he can easily grab from the fridge. I’ll come home and the house will be in an absolute state.

When daddy’s here, our daughter largely has to entertain herself, but sometimes she drags him into her games whether he likes it or not.

Once, while he was on camera being beamed from our house to a meeting in his company’s headquarters, she appeared behind him to dress him up as one of the characters from the Disney animated film Frozen.

His workmates very much enjoyed his continuing to give a presentation whilst simultaneously being dressed in an Anna cape!