"WILL it help you work quicker if I stand on this chair and sing nursery rhymes?" It was meant as a positive suggestion and was said with such genuine hopefulness that I almost said yes.

But I knew, deep down, that a small boy singing the Grand Old Duke Of York in a loud, tuneless voice while standing on a blue plastic chair about a quarter of an inch from my right ear would not necessarily make me write any quicker.

That's just one of the joys of working from home. When the school holidays come around you have to try to work surrounded by the chaos of kids.

I try to keep my workload to a minimum during the long summer break and the work I do take on is usually bashed out (sorry, I mean lovingly crafted) after the little ones are safely tucked up in bed. Or at least when the littlest little one is safely banged up behind the bars of her cot.

The larger little one tends to roam around for a bit at bedtime, changing his books, getting a drink, going to the loo about five times, flushing the loo a further ten times just to make sure and - his grand finale - taking his pyjamas off and putting his pants on his head (it helps him to keep cool, apparently).

But all this action usually takes place upstairs, so I'm safe in my dining room den to tippy-tap away on the laptop until something distracting comes on the telly or someone waves a glass of something alcoholic under my nose.

Occasionally, however, there is some work that just has to be done during the day: most notably, this column. The one year old has a kip for two hours or so in the afternoon, so she's no problem. But the five year old is, well, a five year old and, like a Duracell bunny on crack, goes on and on and on. As a result, finding an hour or so to write when he is around is like trying to find the holy grail, only without the armour, the swords and the horses (although all three would certainly come in useful).

As I write this now, he is reconstructing the entire plot of Jurassic Park under the table, complete with the roars of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and every pearl of wisdom that passed the lips of Dr Alan Grant ("they travel in herds; I just knew they would travel in herds!").

As if all that were not enough, he is also starting to extemporise on the original script, adding his own ad libs as the action progresses. An apatosaurus (the modern name for what we used to call a brontosaurus apparently) has just appeared from under the table to say hello. Or rather "hallo der, I'm Pat O'Saurus, t' be sure" in a terrible cod Irish accent (I blame his father).

Hang on...got to go...he's now dragging the paddling pool out of the shed...

It is now five hours later. The kids are in the bath hitting each other with plastic ducks, a pastime they never tire of and never fail to find absolutely hilarious, and I'm finally sitting down to dash off the last few paragraphs of this blasted thing (sorry, I mean lovingly crafted column again, obviously).

Kids are wonderful creatures, particularly when they are house-trained and can be allowed out without a muzzle, but they will insist on having every scrap of your attention and every ounce of your energy from the moment they rise (with the sun) until the moment you drop (approximately eight and a half seconds after they have gone to bed).

Which, as you may have gathered already, is a long-winded excuse for not having any time to actually think of something to write about this week. Don't get your hopes up for next week or the week after that either - it's a long time until September.

Updated: 11:34 Monday, August 02, 2004