Yes, I know, one minute I'm posting daily the next you don't hear from me for the best part of a week.
Yes, it was that time of year again, my Olympian Marathon, except it happens annually, not quadrennially.
Mother deigned to grace us with her presence.
Teenage daughter was battened down, BBC was despatched to re-hab, hubby made arrangements to be in Europe on business and then we were ready.
Spine straight, shoulders square and upper lip stiff, we set our faces to the wind and prepared for the onslaught.
Poor old SezJez could wear a burkha and the old girl would still find fault.
Anyway, apart from deciding to clean the grill just before everyone got up for breakfast, (at Christmas she decided to clean the worktops while I was trying to prepare the turkey,) she kept herself reasonably contained.
I nipped in the bud her habit of asking "What do you want me to eat up?", which she surely must have realised by now pisses me off totally, by explaining that I now had a pet gannet that would eat up any left overs.
Unfortunately I wasn't as successful with her habit of reading headlines and stories out loud from her newspaper when I am trying to have a quiet five with my, different, newspaper. Nor with her habit of telling you things you already know, e.g. "Oh, this is the men's diving." when you are watching the men's diving.
And all in all she had a nice time, lunch in Leeds, run out to Sheffield, a couple of gentle walks, which, given the weather and her health is about all that you can do.
And I know some of you think I'm mean but I can tell you, she will be glad to get back to Morecambe away from my lackadaisical squalor, haphazard eating arrangements and erratic comings and goings of the teenagers. As she says, "It's lovely to see you, but it's lovely getting back to my own place too."