Hide and seek

I thought that at 16 the big son would have grown out of hide and seek.

It's not him hiding behind sofas or in the understairs cupboard for me to find. No, he has decided that obviously I just love to spend hours searching the house for the phone.

There are four phones in this house so you'd think that at least one would be where it should be when I come to want to use the landline. No chance. I thought I was being really clever having one handset on my bedside table but that didn't fool him, not once in recent weeks has that one been anywhere near my bedroom.

Like so many teenagers he has a worryingly short attention span which means hide and seek can demand an innovative approach. He obviously takes the game seriously and goes out of his way to make sure that I get the full benefits of the search. I've learned that it's no good just scouring the obvious places, like the sofas or his bedroom. Actually there's no point presuming the missing phones might even be in the house, oh no, he's decided to make the game a lot more demanding by including the outdoors too now. What fun.

I recently found one in the garden on top of the rabbit hutch - abandoned there while he was cleaning the rabbits out and then wandered off when something more interesting came along.

Then there was the one that ended up in the laundry basket, hurled in there with his clothes. Goodness only knows how all four have so far mananged to escape a twirl in the washing machine.

So as well as 'flush and wash' they'll also be engraving 'where's the bloody phone?' on my epitaph.