THERE'S a christening in the air. I know because I can feel it in my murky agnostic waters. The bubbles of dread are beginning to rise, ready to rocket to the surface with an evangelical pop when the call comes.

My niece has just turned one and, if her parents follow the precedent set by her older brother, we should be receiving a phone call any day now to put us on christening red alert.

In some respects I wish they would just put us out of our misery: south London, such-and-such a Sunday, best bib and tucker, be there. But they are trying to break it to us gently this time. Maybe my previous Victorian fainting fit and the unmanly screams of my partner have had some influence on their decision, or perhaps they suspect that if they give us too much notice we might use the time to come up with a cunning plan of escape. Either way, I wish they would just get on with it.

It's not that I have anything against christenings as such, it's just that my nephew's was such a blummin' hoo-ha. And my brother-in-law and his wife, being the wonderfully mad creatures that they are, will almost certainly try to top that hoo-ha with an out-and-out palaver. They might even go for a full-on ballyhoo.

When we got the call four years ago about their son's engagement with the font and the fella in the frock, it was something of a surprise as, to my knowledge, neither of them had set foot inside a church for at least a decade. They even did the decent thing on their wedding day and swapped St Luke's for St Lucia, saying "I do" in a beach-side pagoda instead of in a draughty windsock of a church in West Norwood.

This time, however, there would be no escape for us poor heathens. This time we had to pack our belongings, including an 18-month-old noise and smell machine, into a car approximately the size of the Book of Common Prayer and head down the M1 for the hoo-ha to end all hoo-has.

This was the time of the petrol strike, so we struggled down to London on a wing, a prayer and the last vapours of fuel in our rattling old rust bucket to be greeted by complete chaos.

What looked like an entire farmyard of chicken was being vigorously fried in the kitchen, an abandoned vacuum cleaner was droning away to itself in the hall, someone with a face the colour of a Smurf was leaning over a mountain of partially inflated balloons, panting and muttering about bicycle pumps, and the boy of the hour was strapped into one of those tortuous electronic swing chairs, screaming like a banshee while desperately searching for the off switch.

I'd like to say things got calmer as we headed for church, but since my time-conscious brother-in-law literally mowed down an old lady with his buggy, knocking her into a bush and her Sunday wig into a neighbouring garden, that would be stretching the truth to breaking point.

Which is pretty much where the rest of us were almost two hours later. Christenings, by their very nature, are supposed to be about children, but this was not a child-friendly event. The service, which was all high church book-kissing and bowing, went on for well over an hour and a half.

With the help of a jumbo bag of raisins and my partner's extensive collection of funny faces, we just about managed to keep our 18-month-old under control (apart from the inappropriate shouting, but that's another story).

At least we have all that lovely chicken to tuck into, we thought as we wearily trudged back to the house, passing a furious-looking old woman with her hair on back to front along the way. But alas, we were told on our arrival that the food would not be ready for at least another three hours - approximately one hour after we had to set off back again up the M1.

And that's why I wish they would set the date now. Don't beat about the burning bush, just tell us when the christening is going to be so we can book our table at the Little Chef.

Updated: 11:17 Monday, May 24, 2004