Productivity drops over the school holidays for the parent who works from home, especially in winter when inclement weather keeps the kids indoors. There are just so many puzzles that can be done, pictures drawn and videos watched on a rainy day until cabin fever sets in.

Let’s face it. What would you do? Test your imagination to come up with a new game or go bug mom or dad? At the very least you’ll squeeze a sweetie out of them as they buy 10 minutes more on their computer.  

I have an ace up sleeve and escape to a friend’s office two days a week so I can get some quality graft time — and adult banter but it has got me wondering why, when most of us can afford to spend so little time with our children, they drive us crazy when we do have the luxury of a lengthy stretch of quality time with them?

Like many parents, I view the school holidays with some trepidation and, I do not lie, if you’ve ever wondered into a shopping mall on the first day of term you can see visably joyous mothers relishing being out and unemcumbered their little bundles of demands.

In the last summer holidays, I ran into a friend of mine (a father of a  6-year-old boy) who was taking two weeks off work to be solo parent. He confessed he was at the end of his tether so I suggested he come round to my place in the afternoon and we’d drink beers at the pool side while the kids frolicked in the water.

He turned up brandishing a bottle of vodka, saying he needed something stronger. I unearthed a bottle of gin but couldn’t locate the shaker (my martini daze are long behind me) nor did I have vermouth so we mixed the hooch up with ice in a tea pot and knocked it back with a twist of lemon rind.

The fraught father  was visably relaxed after his second. 

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