I came home the other night and said "Lisa! Someone just called you an owl!". She looked at me, slightly startled, and said "What??"

Obviously I was aiming for 'who', but to be honest, my hopes weren't high when I started. The good news, however, is that I no longer need to rely on this family's comedy skills to get us onto Britain's Got Talent, because out of nowhere, Toby's developed the ability to levitate...

He can float at will, six inches off the ground. We're going to save a fortune on carpet wear and tear.

As it happens, I'm particularly pleased to see Toby going up in the world, because I'm currently implementing Operation Stack in the children's bedroom, and I need someone to climb this ladder...

Those bunk beds are currently on order, and due to arrive next month on Friday the 13th. What could possibly go wrong? I have to attend a training course on Monday the 16th to teach me how to recruit people without ending up in court for my bad decisions, but I then have four days annual leave in which to throw out 90% of the kids' worldly possessions, take Toby's dilapidated cot to the tip, and single-handedly build a set of bunk beds.

My aim is for the children's bedroom to look more like the one in that picture, and less like the junk shop below...

Obviously it will still feature my mother-in-law in a cowboy hat - that's pretty much unavoidable - but she'll look less like a cowboy in an Indian slum.

Achieving this miracle might require getting rid of the children for a while...

... and ironically, building a set of bunk beds would be a lot easier if we didn't have children at all, but I'll give them the address of the nearest Travelodge, and we'll trust the rest to luck.

Anyhoo, the fact that I'm now going a fortnight between blog posts is a measure of how crazy my life has become. I had a day off on Monday, and spent most of it working from home. I did, however, manage to whisk my wife away for lunch at the marina...

That's a pizza oven in the background, not a condom in my ear.

As for the weekends, we're now taking Amelie to swimming lessons, gymnastics, and - from next Saturday onwards - cheerleading. The aim is to build up her activities to the point where we don't see her.

We also have to factor in the odd Frozen party...

... and this morning we're taking her horse riding. Interestingly, I was chatting to one of the other NHS service managers before Christmas, and she asked me what my children want from Santa. I mentioned that Amelie would quite like a pony, and she started advising me on the price of tack and stabling. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I consider My Little Pony out of our price range, and the closest we'll get to buying a horse is putting two quid on the Grand National.

But that was before Lisa got a Groupon voucher for a half-price, one-off riding lesson. We're getting an hour for fifteen quid. It's usually thirty. And cheerleading is three. Suffice it to say, she'll be getting pom-poms long before a saddle.