The Siberian swans have arrived on the island, and brought with them our first icy draughts of the year. We are back to the frozen windscreens and frost-etched leaves of those months when our part of the globe, shackled by its axis, leans away from the sun.

And so this morning it was my job to hunt for gloves to keep my children’s fingers from going a rather fetching shade of blue.

Which meant braving that cavernous space underneath the stairs.

For most organised mums-of-the-world, the space under the stairs stores things neatly in transparent boxes. It is well-lit and conducive to putting one’s hand on any accessory with well-oiled, greasy-pole speed.

But for me, looking  under the stairs is like a particularly grim kind of archaeology.

Let us consider the uses of this space. It has residents, oh yes: people -and animals- who inhabit it on a regular basis.

Occasionally it becomes Maddie’s quiet place. Although doorless, no-one looks as they walk past and one can remain fairly anonymous.

It is Felix’s camp. Bionicles have fought great battles there, and a quiet game of monopoly is possible if you balance the board on the toybox.

The Princesses love to make it their base on long, relentless days with Auntie Kate. The Barbie population of the household, some 40 dolls in various states of undress and coiffure, follow them inside.

When Big Al is around there are few places to hide. The dog finds the cupboard under the stairs suits him very well. He curls up warily in his adopted lair and stays very, very quiet, with body language which shouts Victim.

Although the space under the stairs is very well served indeed for hooks for coats, an inordinate number of things live on the floor.

This morning I got out the archaeological team to inspect the site.

On the top layer: yesterdays warm coats. I do go blue in the face telling my offspring to hang them up but we’re still working towards success on that one.

The secondary layer sported the raincoats which have been rendered necessary by the last few weeks.

Still deeper, and there are all the jumpers Maddie did not want to wear when I insisted she should. Her current strategy for looking the way she feels she should is the Last Minute Ditch attempt. She simply takes off the garment I have ruled must stay on, and leaves it under the stairs. By the time I notice, we could be miles away.

Cunning plan. But I’ve rumbled it.

And then onwards and downwards, through the geological layers, until we reach the cushions- brought to a prized camp for comfort- and the toys.

Shall I count the toys? There is an orange plastic spade and a yellow bat for swingball. There is an inflatable cone, suitable for use as traffic calming measure. Add to that a barbie dressed up as one of Aladdin’s tiller girls (I know, I know), an A4 notebook filled with poetry written by a ten-year-old, and a grotesque mutation combining the concepts of Girls World hair styling models and My Little Pony. Effectively, a pony who looks like Cheryl Cole.

I’m not making this up.

But in among all that debris, not one warm glove was to be found.

We used to have gloves, lots of gloves. Granted, odd gloves were occasionally worn to school to save little hands from perishing: that is not entirely unknown.

But no gloves? Had Macaulay developed a taste for them? Had Big Al posted them all down the toilet when I was not looking?

Then a small gruff voice said, from behind the gigantic pile which had been excavated: “Got my gloves, Mum.”

Pardon?

Once I had moved the excavations back under the stairs pending a proper tidy up, I quizzed Felix. I didn’t recognise his beautiful, blue stripey gloves. Where did he get them from?

Granny, of course.

Since the children were tiny, small but vital jobs have simply been tidied up, without fuss, by my mother-in-law. She seems to be able to spot way ahead of time what we will need, and make sure it is there. She never refers to these little kindnesses, they just happen.

I think she might be telepathic, or at least a soothsayer. Whetever she is, she is indispensable.

Standing in the playground, I watched Felix once more carefully take his gloves out of his reading folder, and painstakingly put them on.

He had that quiet smile, the Lady Di special, and he didn’t know anyone was watching. The order of the gloves, the fact they matched and fitted and cosseted his hands, all these things, he loved.

When Maddie was very tiny, we moved away from an idyllic Dartmoor home, close to the Devon coast, to return to a prosaic new town, because my family lived there.

Then the house next door came up for sale and Phil’s parents moved in, with incredible foresight as it turned out.

Even since, we have been supported as we brought our family up. Two days a week, the dog is walked and looked after by my parents. They anticipate when life is due to be tough, and gently move in to lighten the burden.

Not everyone has such a comprehensive support network.

My mind has been much occupied recently with another mother who wrote. She was flung into the most distressing kind of chaos, and dire circumstances dictated that she move home with her children and raise money by writing little stories for editors.

She was the mother in E Nesbit’s classic, The Railway Children.

She had no-one, no support network at all. Stranded in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, it was the kindness of strangers that made the children happy, and the cottage home, and brought her wrongly-accused husband back to his family where he belonged.

The Doctor would not dream of charging her for his services; the stationmaster befriended her children; the villagers were full of warmth towards the three personable children; and a stranger on a train, who happened to be a very important man, worked tirelessly to free the family’s Daddy.

Life can be a challenging business. It can throw both wonderful and terrible events at us, and we do our best to solve them on our own.

But all of us remember times when someone has proffered a small kindness which made life bearable. It has helped bad times to pass and the good times to reappear once more.

And for this, much thanks.