When your twelve-year-old daughter would rather stay at home and nip across the road to a fete at her old primary school that go away on a family holiday, you realise that you are either a terrifically boring father organising terrifically boring outings or that the kids are just fast growing up.
But Rosie is Rosie, and as a consequence of her decision we concluded that I should go away with Joe for my quarterly £9.50 pilgrimage to the Isle of Wight while the girls would remain back home in Isleworth. For about the third time in a row, we stayed at the excellent Rookley Country Park, although we did also pay a visit to our other stamping grounds at Fairway, Lower Hyde, Whitecliff Bay, Thorness Bay and Landguard.
And didn't he just love the attention? A whole weekend of flitting from toy shop to burger joint to amusement arcade. The computer may say no but unfortunately Daddy always says yes, and without the tempering influence of his more sensible mother I was always going to be a lamb to the slaughter.
But much though I love my home town it is always good to get across the sea (inasmuch as the Solent is a sea) and recharge the batteries, whatever the collateral damage.
Now I'm back, albeit exhausted and impoverished, and raring to go once again.
I don't think I would ever leave Isleworth to live anywhere else. With all my roots, my childhood and my memories being there, it would seem almost like a betrayal, even though the majority of the people I grew up with have long moved on to pastures new.
When I am at home though, there is nothing I look forward to more than my next holiday. It doesn't much matter whether it's a week in the Algarve or a £9.50 Sun weekend on the Isle of Wight, I love to be across the water and away from it all.
And then, as soon as I arrive at my apartment, caravan, bungalow or whatever, almost the first thing I do is log onto my laptop and attend to my casework or liaise with my Community Group colleagues back home.
Somebody once described it as "Double-Life Syndrome", the desire always to be part in one place and part in another.
As I write I approach with a little sadness the last night of a week-long stay on the Island. Having spent the first three nights in a modest chalet at Whitecliff Bay, we then moved across to Rookley Country Park for another four in one of Island View Holidays' impressively spacious new bungalows.
As each member of my family has distinctly different interests, life is always a compromise. At Whitecliff Bay much time was spent amusing the children, including endless games of pool with Joe. On one occasion though we managed a very pleasant walk along the beach during which he was able to put his geological expertise to good use by describing to us all the many rock formations along the multi-hued cliffs (see above).
Rookley provided me with an opportunity for a spot of fishing, while Caroline took the little ones to the cinema. Then today it was the turn of Caroline and I to venture out on a five-mile cliff-top walk, much to the chagrin of the couch-potato tendency.Whilst I'm no stranger to walking, the cliff-top hike (below right) was a completely new experience. The official guides assume that the walker is an anorak, familiar with the requisite lingo. Thus it was that I found myself hundreds of feet up in the air, one eye 
straining down at the sea below whilst keeping the other out for a "triangulation point" without having the foggiest what one actually looked like.Somehow we got down, and back, and now it's off to the club to watch a cabaret for the last time before making our way back to TW7 in time for my Ivybridge surgery. And looking forward, no doubt, to next year's holiday.
