The TV aerial that there's nothing wrong with

There is one sure antidote to a failing day, and that is do nothing. This is the most wonderful medicine, and I am sure is practised by home educators everywhere.

So today this is the bold target I set for myself and the gritlets. At breakfast I suggest we don't go anywhere, or do anything, or try to be clever with stuff, like a plan, or a piece of paper and a pen, or indeed anything, especially look for socks, which surely won't be matched anyway.

I suggest I read The December Rose by Leon Garfield, if anyone wants to listen.

If only it could stay like that, snuggled up on the sofa, Squirrel on the left, Tiger on the right, Shark lolling on the sofa back, grumbling that it's always her turn on the back, and she never gets a chance, ever ever ever, to sit on the fluffy cushions while a story's being read.

But then Grit remembers about the aerial.

Mr Pod, who lives on the middle floor, says he cannot get a picture on his new telly. He thinks we have an old aerial, and he's rung up a man in Northampton to drive goodness knows how many miles to come and fit a new aerial. I think I might have said, perched somewhere on the hall stairs last night, surrounded by screaming, and possibly with a noose round my neck, that I thought this big old house had a new aerial fixed a little while ago, and that it should work with this new fangled lark that is digital.

But because my brain resembles a plate of cold mashed cabbage, what with the screaming and the isolation, maybe those words didn't get through. Or maybe it is because somewhere I am thinking, I know nothing about aerials. The gritlets do not watch TV. And I don't get the chance even for Coronation Street. Now, only the DVD Night at the Museum and endless Dad's Army videos, so no TV at all. Therefore, I conclude, my brain ticking away like a plate of mushy peas, I probably do not know what I am talking about when it comes to aerials.

Anyway, Mr Pod, with his round face and his round made-for-television glasses stares blankly at me, like I cannot possibly know what I am talking about because I do not say it from behind a TV screen and do not look like Carol Vorderman. So Mr Pod must be right because he says he is, and it is all the aerial's fault, and there is a man coming here on Friday, and that is unstoppable, and by the way he is out fishing in the North Atlantic, so can I sort it out and let the aerial man have access to the roof.

And these are all my thoughts and recollections which gather on me as I settle down for a long read about Barnacle and the boat.

So I post the children on look-out duty and say we will read about Inspector Creaker's hunt for the locket through Victorian London until the man comes about the aerial.

And a couple of hours pass and we all forget.

Then I happen to take a break, wander through the hall, and there on the mat is the card which says Hi! I am your aerial man! I've just driven 90 miles with my ladder to fit your new aerial and YOU SODS WEREN'T AT HOME.

Which means I can now telephone the number on the card and say Hi! I'm the poor sod without a husband edging on a nervous breakdown down in the flat where the buzzer doesn't work, waiting for the aerial man we don't need and who didn't knock, called by the bloke who doesn't know what's wrong and isn't here. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with the aerial, and if there was your ladder wouldn't reach, so please, don't come back.

Like I said, I set out to achieve nothing today, and that's exactly what I did.