It’s all in the preparation, my husband tells me.

Generally, it is when he is pontificating on the complicated business of home decor.

He stands in front of a wall, and identifies each blemish with a finger-search, and tuts and schemes. After this pre-paint ritual, he scrubs the affected area with sugar soap so that, if it were possible to eat one’s dinner off a vertical surface, you could eat your dinner off it.

Painting takes a long, long time. And to be fair, the last project- Mad’s new bedroom- was a tour de force.

He becomes quickly exasperated with me, because I just want to slap the paint on, willy-nilly, anything to cover up the unsightly aged paint.

The first night we moved into our very first home, we were a little aghast.

It had been owned by a kindly gentleman who smoked constantly in his beloved homestead. Consequently the two fat cocker spaniels who already laboured under the weight of too much blubber, also smoked, but passively. We noted, on our first visit, that their progress around the house was laboured and accompanied by wheezing.

The walls, too, smoked, and this was evidenced by the coffee-tint and an ambient halo of nicotine.

When one glimpses the house of one’s dreams, it is all too easy, like a new lover, to ignore the little blemishes which will later become rather more significant.

And the day before the furniture was due to be carried in, it dawned upon us that something must be done about the house’s nicotine habit immediately.

So we bought two huge vats of paint. I seem to remember washing the walls- atypical for me- to stop the brown seeping through.

And then we slapped it on for grim life.

The paint went up, it behaved, and it held the fort until the reinforcements, in the shape of a beautiful kitchen diner, appeared a couple of years later. Even the smell was gone in a trice.

So: little preparation, but still our cunning plan worked.

And that is my approach to life: not a great deal of preparation, but lots of cunning plans, so that when anything goes belly-up, I can redeem the situation in a jiffy.

Last night, my long-suffering mother asked, have you packed yet?

She knew the whole family was due to relocate for a week to the south coast, catch some rays, visit a castle or two. And she knew, without even asking, what my answer would be.

Of course I hadn’t packed. Life was too exciting on Friday to spend it preparing for Saturday. I would handle Saturday when Saturday arrived.

This morning dawned, and I knew I had until lunchtime to sort everything out.

But my cunning plans usually work.

The kids went off with Phil for Felix’s football game, and I began. Shower, and off to drop guest-dog Clover off, for our time looking after her is done. Then I drove straight to a sensibly priced store to purloin a pair of tough boots for each member of my offspring, and trousers for Maddie.

And finally, I arrived at the supermarket and filled my bags with good things to post in the boot for transportation.

Yanking the case from the top of the wardrobe, I flung it open and quickly filled it with all the necessaries.

We were good to go.

But I had packed all the food; and we needed dinner. I needed another plan.

Rummaging in the cupboard I found a favourite: noodles. Match that with chopped sausages, and all it needed was my trademark tomato sauce, to complete the ensemble.

I think most mums have a Trademark Tomato Sauce. It is named contrary to the trades description act, really. It has every vegetable I can lay my hands on in it, disguised by sun dried tomatoes and lashings of passata.

It is important, for the purposes of the story, that you appreciate the sheer vegetable content of this sauce: it contained onions, garlic, courgettes, cabbage and beans. It was the 007 of the stealthy vegetable espionage world. The kids eat it, and they have no idea they’re eating a vegetable platter in disguise.

We got to the end, and there was a pile of sauce-covered noodles, complete with succulent sausages, left.

What would you do?

A person with more forethought- one who put in more preparation- might have put the rich, sumptuous mix in the composter. Failing this, it might have been decanted into a little box ready for evening supper by the sea. At the very least, they would have headed with it to the nearest bin.

Reader, I gave it to the dog.

My internal dialogue reasoned: it will take at least two hours for this rich repast to get to the important bits of the dog. By that time, the dog will be whipped around by the sea breezes, those fresh salt winds which worry the south coast of England.

Any emissions will simply be a candle in the wind.

If you learn anything from my sorry fate, let it be never, never to make unfounded assumptions about small wiry terriers.

Shortly after the meal we were packed up and sitting in our battered but comfortable bus, heading boldly for the coast.

The usual chatter ensued: Phil put on Imagine and we were talking about how John Lennon came to make it.

I looked in the driving mirror and observed that Felix was green.

Phil, I urged, Felix is carsick, do something.

But Felix informed me quickly that he was not carsick: rather, a stench had just been emitted from the small dog sitting at his feet.

The journey from mouth to foul emission had taken just 30 short minutes.

What was worse, he was at the very back of the car, and we were faced with the unavoidable truth: it was heading our way. Aircon could not help us now. It would only move things around more efficiently, compounding the grim reality about to confront our noses.

All the way down the motorway, for hour after relentless hour, the little gas factory on the floor necessitated excessive over-use of the electric windows.

Reader, I had many cunning plans: but for the dog’s digestion, I prepared abysmally.

The next time I go on any long journeys, be assured he will be fasted like a monk.