At eight o’clock the doorbell rang, and three children exploded through the door.

They joined Felix as he contemplatively munched a piece of toast, and the atmosphere went from monastic to frenetic in sixty seconds.

Big Al, my three year old nephew, has not been well, and he is still in quarantine before his return to nursery.

I imagine nursery will be awfully quiet today. They might even give some of the staff a day off. Holiday, chaps, Alasdair’s not coming in. We’re off down the pub.

My house, in comparison, is noisy beyond words.

My nickname for my perfectly proportioned little nieces, the Princesses, belies their ability to pump out those decibels.

The moment the girls arrived I was regaled with loud tales of how the noisy neighbours next door, who boast both stereo and drum kit, have now welcomed a tuba into the fold.

Alasdair ran in to find me making sandwiches, and informed me his sister was involved in dastardly dealings. This involved, I believe, hugging him.

Oh, that’s terrible, Al, I commiserated, and then called every other member of the household for an exuberant group hug. Faced with a party, the three year old reviewed his anti-hug policy with all speed.

This morning we had the moment when Al discovered he liked marmite (that made for some interesting facial expressions and urgent use of a wipe) a mammoth gardening session which removed inertia and the grotesque monster summer flowers; and a reinstating of Al’s sovereignty of the land of Under The Stairs.

It has been hectic, but I have felt once more at home again. This chaos is vastly different from the hush of the last few days. We have been minus a family member, and quiet has reigned, but noisy is where I am most comfortable.

A favourite world of mine is the one I met when I was training to lead others as a head teacher.

I studied management, and met ideas so intoxicating my brain could hardly contain the excitement. That training was aimed at making oneself whole, so that one could lead others with enough self esteem to make the whole thing work.

An idea that fitted like a glove into my world view was the Edge Of Chaos theory.

Proponents like Tom Peters and Charles Handy point to that zone in one’s life where everything is happening at breakneck speed: the opportunities flying at one, decisions required quick and fast, time and space romping.

It has been branded the Edge of Chaos.

And it is when things are bordering on this precipice; when the fictional ferret is so nearly down the proverbial trousers; that we are at our most creative, they say.

Dear Reader, if you visit often, you will realise immediately why this theory is like an irresistible bar of the most velvet brown chocolate to me.

It validates the way I do things. It validates the ironing pile I call Vesuvius, the non existent fridge-front filing system, the last-minute returned forms: it gives meaning to the days I have to feed cat food to the dog, or dog food to the cat, and reap the doubtful consequences.

I am allowed to do all of this, Dear Reader, because Charles Handy says I can.

I fulfil the other side of the bargain. Trust me, I’m extraordinarily creative.

Especially when I’m ironing one of Felix’s shirts just seconds before he is off to school, and when I am rooting at the bottom of the ironing pile for another black sock. It’s amazing what that undercurrent, the subconscious, can achieve, there on the edge of chaos.

And now, after a week of too much time, I’m back there, in my comfort zone, on that precarious precipice where real life peters out and string theory, with its tension and kinetic energy, begins to take over.

This is evidenced  by a small chaotic moment when I got in the car to drive down to collect my daughter from her school trip.

As I started the engine, the satnav started to guide me gently towards the venue for Felix’s last football game. So courteous, so polite, yet so random, I attempted to locate it to switch it off, and found that I could not.

Throughout our wait for Maddie’s coach- some 20 minutes-it professionally, and with intricate diplomacy, urged me to turn round and go in the opposite direction.

We still can’t find where it has fallen, in that cavernous car. I think the battery has run down now.

Of course, there is one famous fictional character who gave himself up entirely to such random activity, there on the edge of chaos. And his results were undesirable to say the least.

Psychiatrist Luke Rhineheart made the decision to stop making any decisions at all, but to base every junction in life on the roll of a dice.

The result is a  nightmarish bacchanalian progress to the gates of hell. It involves lots of sex, some rape, murder and a break out of psychiatric patients. It is a parable of what happens when, rather than teetering, one takes a stride over the edge into Chaos Proper.

It was written by real-life psychologist George Cockcroft – Luke Rhinehart is his pen-name- after he had experimented with using dice to make decisions.

It’s the ultimate delegation of responsibility, a vile barren land where even self is lost to chaos.

But we couldn’t put it down.

We read it one Christmas, and by New Year were ready to try the dice thing on a tiny scale. With friends on New Years Eve, we devised three harmless possibilities for how we should pass through that membrane from one year to the next.

We were hugely relieved not to throw anything which bagged the first option, which was not to say another word to each other and go immediately to bed.

But nor did we throw the favourite: to dance till dawn.

No, midnight found us down at the local canal in the freezing cold, peering hopefully up at a cloudful sky, waiting for a star to appear. Whether it was the best throw, you may be the judge.

It is wonderful to travel at a hectic pace through the process of creating and working together.

But every move we make, at whatever pace we make it, has far ranging consequences: whether we accept them or not.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to deal with that ironing pile.