Good lord.

Mummy, enquired Small Person yesterday, when can we tidy out my wardrobe?

Small Person's wardrobe is the stuff of nightmares. Ancient nursery school drawings jostle with long-since-forgotten gloves; board games with vital pieces missing flumpf beneath the weight of all those bloody shoes that only fit for a five-minute window before being tossed aside. Occasionally, the Cat pops in there for a nose around, most likely streaking out minutes later in a trail of tinsel, french knitting and, ironically, random bits of Mousetrap*.

We are long overdue for a clearout of said black hole. Our usual routine is to spend a weekend sometime soon after Christmas taking every single Barbie shoe, stray bead and Snakes and Ladders set and plonking them in a twisted heap on the bedroom carpet. We then circle it in a style reminiscent of small Favela children, picking out choice items to take to the local children's centre before becoming bored with the whole thing and simply decanting everything en masse into fourteen black bin bags which are taken to the tip for the Dump-Monkeys to pore over at their leisure.

Anyway. I digress.

I am currently laid up after another bout of knee surgery. I am bruised on both legs from thigh to calf and am walking like Ben Shephard after a secretive night out in West London. I cannot clear out a wardrobe. I can hardly dress myself.

So.

We'll do it soon my love, I reassure. Why is it so important right now?

Because, Mummy, my alien offspring replies, I want to turn it into a place where I can pray to god.

Um, halp???

I am relishing the first time she traipses into her classroom and announces that Mummy turned the wardrobe into a place for her to pray to Jeebus. See you on the register, Karen Matthews....

* I know. Who am I kidding? Bratz Dolls and crack pipes. Happy now?