WALKING in on the middle of conversations is one just one of my many talents. Eavesdropping and getting the wrong end of the stick are the other two.

It has become something of a sport for me. I join a group of mums lurking around waiting for their kids outside school or creep up on my own mum when she is mid-gab with one of her neighbours and try to work out what on earth they are talking about from the tail-end tidbits I manage to catch.

"And that's why she's got one leg shorter than they other," they say. "With a goat? That's disgusting!" Or - and this is one my favourites - "so I told him, if you put that thing anywhere near me I'm off, so he did, and I stayed, 'cos I quite liked it." Cue raucous laughter all round, including me even though I'm not entirely sure what is so funny.

The other day, however, I walked in on a conversation about me. I had wandered off looking for my daughter's dummy - she has a throw like Fatima Whitbread these days - and returned to find my son chatting to another of the school-run mums.

"Yeah," he said sadly, scraping the toe of his new shoes across the gravel and into the mud. "My mum's always beating me."

I froze. And as I stood waiting for the ground to open beneath my feet and swallow me up, I swear I heard the sound of a social services SWAT team jumping into a Citroen 2CV and chugging very slowly towards the school, stopping every ten yards or so for a meeting.

Then, as the other mum began to laugh, I realised the truth. They had been talking about snakes and ladders.

I smiled ruefully. The truth was out: I may not beat my son black and blue every morning before school, but I do regularly beat him at snakes and ladders.

I am, to my shame, a tiny bit competitive when it comes to games. While other mums may let their children win the odd game of dominoes or throw the occasional game of skittles, I always try to win.

I study the other player's form (he's got a runny nose today so he may be off his game - hurrah!); I am adept at card or domino counting (come on Mr Bun The Baker, I know you're in that pack somewhere); and I don't give any credence to time-wasters (go for a poo later, we've got five more rounds of Top Trumps to play before tea).

I blame my dad. While not a world-class competitive parent like me, he has always been a bit of a stickler for playing by the rules.

This meant that when I was a child he, unlike many of my pals' parents, would never allow me to cheat my way to victory in our regular games of Cluedo by peeping into the envelope while he sloped off to make a cuppa. And if we were playing basketball in the garden, he would never deliberately miss a basket to let me win. Even though he was 6ft tall and I was only 3ft in my school pumps (trainers hadn't been invented then).

He is the same with my son now. Both are football fans and like nothing better than to get out into the garden for a kickabout. Anyone else would let a five-year-old put a couple of goals past them, but not my dad. He would rather dive athletically into the mud to save a nifty strike or make a catlike leap - despite his allegedly gammy knee - to deflect a shot heading for the top corner.

And, to be honest, I'm not so sure it's such a bad thing.

It is good for kids to know that they can't always win in sport, in games and in life. Especially if they are playing against me.

Updated: 10:41 Monday, March 29, 2004