IT WASN'T until I was half way up the A19 on my way to do a sensitive interview that I realised I was still wearing my slippers.

If these had been ordinary slippers of the neutral velour variety I might just have got away with it.

Unfortunately, I am not a neutral velour type. In the privacy of my home, with the doors securely bolted and the blinds drawn, my footwear has a reputation for eccentricity.

The current incumbents are a pair of bright blue flip-flops with an eye-catching turquoise bubble pattern that really brings out the colour of my trainee varicose veins to perfection.

They are also great for alerting the kids to my imminent arrival in a room because every move I make is accompanied by a cracking flip or a thudding flop. Which means, of course, that they always have time to stop whatever they shouldn't have been doing (nose-picking, ear-twanging, bottom-burping, etc), so they don't get scolded and I don't have to pretend to be all righteous and offended.

The predecessors to my peacekeeping flip-flops were a dynamic duo of cerise plastic mules with silver stud detailing that made me feel like Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot - you know, all girly and twirly and boo-boo-be-doo.

According to my beloved family they made me look like a sad reject in a Bet Lynch look-alike competition. Even then the competition was more likely to have been won by an over-the-hill drag queen with a beer belly and five o'clock shadow than yours truly.

Oh well, I suppose someone has always got to get the fuzzy end of the lollipop (note clever Barry Norman-style film reference there).

Now that I think about it, I got nothing but grief about the slippers I had before my pink pair. These started life as a stylish pair of mushroom-coloured T-bars. I adored them. In fact, I suppose you could say I loved them to death.

By the time I had finished with them, they dropped off my feet in a grimy pile of tattered leather, much to the joy of my partner who had taken a distinct dislike to them towards the end. After a few shandies on a Friday night, he had been known to tear himself away from Will & Grace just long enough to shout abuse at my feet. Well, everyone has to have a hobby I suppose.

Anyway, after a bit of a pointless detour, let's get back to the A19.

After much swearing, a speedy turnaround at Shipton-by-Beningbrough, a quick trip home and a bit more swearing for luck, I was on my travels again wearing more suitable, less blinding footwear. I didn't have my purse or my mobile phone, but what the heck, nobody's perfect (see what I did again there, film fans?).

My problem is not so much that I forget things but that I never have enough time to remember them. Like most women questioned in a recent survey, I simply don't have the time in the mornings to get the kids ready for their day and make myself look like a normal human being.

Researchers found that, on average, women carry out 16 tasks - that's about one every 4.35 minutes - before they leave home in the morning. This compares with 11 for men.

Ah, bless 'em, you're probably thinking, aren't they good doing 11 whole things? Maybe. But when you consider that their 11 things include reading the paper and listening to the radio, while women's 16 things include washing up, tidying the home and feeding the kids, maybe not.

It's not because they are a bunch of idle good-for-nothings though. Perish the thought. According to psychologist Dr Aric Sigman, it's genetic. But he would say that, wouldn't he.

If he didn't, he would have to stop sitting on his bum while coming up with this clap-trap and start helping to fill the kids up with Frosties.

Updated: 11:31 Monday, August 16, 2004