I'm making the most of this - because I know it won't last.

At the risk of sounding very smug and self-satisfied, I have to report that every Sunday for the past month I've had breakfast in bed.

My daughters are at an age where they are keen to become involved in everyday household duties like cleaning, cooking and doing the laundry (not yet bed-making, but I'm hoping that will come).

They have just learned to make toast on their own, and the elder of the two is allowed to boil the kettle and make a cup of tea.

So, to put in practice for Mother's Day, they started serving me breakfast in bed. And last Sunday they did it again, carrying on what I hope will become a weekly ritual of long-standing.

Not everyone likes breakfast in bed. My husband hates it. The idea of having to balance plates and cups on your lap, and of trying to keep crumbs from falling all over the duvet, is to him grotesque.

And, I admit, the spillage part isn't nice. Especially when you fancy a little snooze afterwards and snuggle down to find the sheet covered in grainy bits of wholemeal bread, with the odd sticky dribble of jam on the pillow.

I am pleased to say that those more unpleasant aspects of eating in bed - and I would only ever do it at breakfast time - have to some extent been eliminated since we acquired a tray on legs. Oh, what luxury (although there is a nagging association between them and convalescence homes).

My husband still can't be persuaded to partake, even though the children always bring him something too. I'm glad about that. You need your own space for dining in bed. Advertising agencies have a habit of presenting us with images of couples reclining on Sunday mornings amid a sea of newspapers, croissants, cereal bowls, jugs of milk, steaming cafetieres, vases of flowers, and often the dog too. They always look so relaxed and content, yet I'll bet if either one of them moved so much as an inch the whole idyllic scene would go belly-up.

Anyway, breakfast between the sheets couple-style is really something that, after two or three years, dies out along with other displays of intimacy, like snuggling up on the sofa and walking hand-in-hand along the sea shore.

After that, and particularly after you've had children, lounging around in bed together after 9am on a weekend just isn't the done thing. Someone has to get up to feed the cat and wash last night's pots. And in our house I'm happy to report that it's usually my husband (well, he doesn't like breakfast in bed anyway).

Unfortunately, breakfast in bed usually comes hand-in-hand with a guilt trip. As you sit sipping your tea and reading about how buying a second-home in Goa could change your life, it's hard not to mull over all the chores that need doing. And when you can hear other people getting on with them, you know that your conscience will only be appeased by getting up.

Thankfully, I've got the willpower to fight against that. I'm making the most of being waited on. Next week instead of toast and jam I might place an order for a full English.

Updated: 10:27 Tuesday, April 04, 2006