Toby Young: A weekend in sole charge

Caroline went away last Friday, leaving me alone with our four children for the weekend. Given that they’re aged eight and under, and I’d never been in sole charge before, it was something of a test. Could I cope?

I hadn’t realised quite how regimented my children’s weekends are until I sat down and digested the three pages of instructions Caroline had left. Saturday mornings, for instance, are parcelled out into 30-minute slots, with tennis lessons, karate lessons and God knows what else. If I was late for one appointment it would create a domino effect, throwing the whole schedule out of whack. There was no room for error.

Friday, by contrast, should have been a doddle. Caroline had arranged for Pippa, a mum she shares the school run with, to collect the children from school and meet me at the local sports club at 4 p.m. Piece of cake, right? I was leaving the house at 4.05 p.m, thinking ‘ten minutes late won’t be a problem’, when Pippa pulled up in her people carrier. She wound down the window, gave me a pitying look, and said, ‘Fell at the first hurdle.’

Saturday passed off relatively painlessly, thanks to Caroline’s meticulous instructions, but things went pear-shaped on Sunday. I made the mistake of taking the children to Westfield, London’s largest shopping centre, to see Johnny English Reborn. We were on our way from the car park to the cinema when I remembered I’d forgotten to get Caroline a birthday present. We had 15 minutes to kill before the film started so I thought I’d nip into La Senza and pick up some underwear.

Unfortunately, when we were about halfway there I realised I’d lost Ludo. Now Ludo’s a fairly robust customer with a red belt in karate so I wasn’t too worried.