In June and July I was more than busy with the (unexpected) volume of paid work that came my way and was rather looking forward to a relaxed August.

The weather, as you will probably know, was glorious and I was planning on gardening, writing, dog walking, a bit of Oxfam here and a gentle bit of upholstery there.

But I had failed to concentrate on just what was in my diary and instead of the above, I found myself on an almost continuous carousel of visitors.

Indeed, we had a princely total of six days without some sort of lunch, supper, people staying, people coming, people going, in the whole month.

Oxfam duties fell into a state of sad disrepair and neglect.

The garden looked a bit sad and neglected too, though I have to say left largely to its own devices, it produced a triffid of a cosmos and rescued-off-a-bonfire-and-quickly-planted dahlias have beaten the odds and started popping up all over.

And we did have a nice crop of delicious plums from the espaliered tree planted next to the wall the best beloved built.

My 16-year-old niece came for a surprise visit and because she was here, the seven-year-old and three-year-old grandchildren also came over – and there was sun, a paddling pool, a hose and ball games – you can imagine the excitement.

When they had left, my neighbour reported that a huge quiet sigh fell over the house.

My niece said words to the effect of ‘blimey that was nice but rather full on.’

I reminded her of the times when she was at that age, with that energy and needed to have something to do all the time –  and stayed for a week.

( Mind you at that age she loved cleaning the kitchen and ‘sorting out’ and we had a very clean kitchen and an excel spreadsheet on what was on every shelf of the freezer.)

Some years ago, the day after our wedding celebration, when all the clearing up was done, a lunch for the clearing up helpers was over and the aftermath of a big celebration was pretty much sorted, we fell onto the sofa and put on the television.

We found and watched, in a mute but companionable way, The Railway Children. It was just what we needed.

This time, after the last of the August visitors were delivered to the station, we again slumped on the sofa and to my delight, there was Swallows and Amazons.

And what is more to the point, because we have treated ourselves to a new television – all 32 inches of it – we can now see what is happening without leaning forward and squinting.

And, even better, there is a green button you can press to allow you to go back to the beginning and see the whole movie.

Bliss.