RICHARD IRVINE

DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR A FIRST TIME DAD OF TWINS When the cat's away, the mouse will... quietly clean up

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The idea of this column is to engage readers with occasionally amusing anecdotes about children.

What's different this week is there are no children because Victoria has left me.

Not for ever, just for a week of the Easter Holidays, although she was considering it on a more permanent basis the day before.

On that fateful morning, we had the carpets cleaned, and in the afternoon, I tripped up the stairs and threw, not spilled, but chucked a large cup of coffee all over the very same freshly cleaned carpet.

In my defence, it was either ditch the coffee, or face serious injury, and I explained this, but the anger she felt at seeing half a litre of dark black coffee sprayed across the hallway, clouded her empathy.