FALLING off the wagon is a disappointing experience at the best of times, but falling off the wagon while clutching a Wagon Wheel is nothing less than shameful.

It had to happen eventually I suppose, but I didn't expect my inevitable tumble to be so undignified. A KitKat is one thing, but a Wagon Wheel? These are biscuits only ever eaten by children who are too young to know any better, and by a sub-editor I used to work with many moons ago whose wife put one in his pack-up every day, presumably just after she'd spit on her hankie to wash his face and just before she ironed his jimjams ready for bedtime.

For those of you who don't keep up with matters of national importance and have no idea what on earth Wagon Wheels have got to do with the price of fish, let me enlighten you. I have been a happy passenger on the chocolate wagon (which is not as obscene as it inadvertently sounds) for six months.

Not so much as a molecule of milky goodness has passed my lips (which once again sounds like something Samantha from Sex And The City might say after one too many Manhattans).

But now my days as a happy passenger are over. Once again, I've been left sitting in the dust at the side of the road, licking my wounds in between mouthfuls of Wagon Wheel as the wagon itself trundles on without me.

I have always had a problem with chocolate. The main problem being that I can never get enough of it. As a child I was made an honorary director of Mr Ali's corner shop after investing my weekly pocket money in Lion bars and Fry's Chocolate Creams for the best part of ten years. Later, I was awarded a CBE (Choccy Biccy Eating medal) by the Queen for my services to the HobNob industry.

And now, after the chocolate manufacturers have patiently waited for six months in breathless anticipation of my return to the fold, I think it can only be a matter of time before I am named as the official Nestl Rowntree mascot and a chocolate statue of me is raised in Parliament Street.

You might think I'm over-egging the situation somewhat, but I can assure you I'm not. Just using the phrase 'over-egging' now means I won't be able to get through the day without having a Cadbury's Crme Egg, which I think proves my point quite nicely.

Falling off the wagon after a six-month hiatus would have been forgivable if it had happened on some chocolate-related festival or other, like Easter (yum), Christmas (happy Quality Street everyone!) or April Fool's Day (told you I was desperate).

But it was just an everyday kind of day. Kids, cereal, school-run, yatter-yatter, Balamory - then I made my fatal error.

"I know," I said to my patently uninterested daughter, "let's go and see Grandma Madge."

What harm can a 76-year-old woman do, you might well ask? Especially a 76-year-old woman whose legs regularly fail her and whose cigarette-addled lungs squeak like a cemetery gate?

All I can say is that over a matter of four hours she gradually wore down my defences like a pro. She started with a plate of rich tea biscuits, worked her way up through a Madeira cake and a packet of all-butter shortbread, and before I knew it she was force-feeding me chocolate biscuits from a tin the size of a skip.

"It's not right for a kiddie not to have a biscuit," she wheezed. I'm nearly 35, but to my grandma I'm still just a kiddie with a Wagon Wheel.

THERE might be something in this new theory that babies who have dummies end up with gaps in their teeth. If you catch my 19-month-old daughter from the right angle she looks exactly like Jimmy Tarbuck.

Updated: 09:16 Monday, November 22, 2004