A MOTOR home - that's the answer. Max - alias Peter Kay - and Paddy from the TV have done it, and it looks a good life to me.

Last year I met a woman who sold a fabulous town house to buy one, and now lives life on the road, fruit picking every summer to bring in a bit of cash.

It's the only answer to escaping the rat race.

This week the big ball of life starts rolling all over again. Grown-ups go back to work, children return to school and another year rears its ugly head. Another 12 months to muddle through.

And muddle is the right word. Being middle aged with children and a home to manage is no picnic. My friend grumbled the other day about life having lost its zest. About every year looking just the same as the last - work, paying bills, feeding the family, arguing, worrying, arguing.

I vaguely remember the times, from my late teens to my mid-twenties, when life didn't involve mortgages, council tax, school runs, PTAs (or the avoidance of) and going to bed before 10pm utterly exhausted.

Days - and, of course, nights - were, or at least I remember them being, fun-filled. Laughing, going out, having a good time.

Of course, having children does bring rewards, but it is hard to make the most of your offspring when you're stuck on life's treadmill.

So - and my friend agrees - life on the open road beckons. I've read in the Sunday papers about families, some with young children, babies even, who buy dilapidated motor homes and take off. They don't confine themselves to Britain either. They head off across continents: Europe, Asia, retracing the old Silk Route across land to China.

They don't have to worry about getting the children out of bed on time every morning, they don't stress over SATs results and school catchment areas. They just get out of bed and see what the day brings. New places, new faces, new experiences. And, like Max and Paddy point out, no council tax.

Somehow, I knew I shouldn't have mentioned the idea to my husband. "You'd never survive a day on the Silk Route," he bellowed. "It would only take one border search in some remote territory by men with rifles and you'd be screaming to go home."

"And you wouldn't have Tesco," he added curtly. "You never eat anything that doesn't come pre-packed and labelled."

Not to mention, he added, the cold, the fact that four of us would be sharing cramped quarters for months, and the lack of mechanical-know-how. As my husband said, should something go wrong with the vehicle, Green Flag are unlikely to turn out in the Khyber Pass or the Tibetan plateau.

Isn't it terrible, how dreams can be so cruelly dashed within moments of them materialising?

I'd no sooner got the atlas out than I was putting it away again and having to think about tonight's tea. Still, I suppose I can pop down to the supermarket and be back within ten minutes. At least here I don't have to roam the countryside with a hunting knife for our tea. And I can put the children to bed in a separate room.

Still, if an old VW camper van comes up for sale I might still be tempted. A few runs to Leeds and back to see if I can hack it. Then I may just surprise my husband and head for the East. Brid, or perhaps Scarborough.

Updated: 09:42 Tuesday, January 04, 2005