This week I will be getting my own back.

Having entertained my children and a million of their friends at a huge party on Saturday night, I have decided to have some fun myself during this season of tricks, treats and whatever else passes for Hallowe'en.

As a child I was heavily involved in mischief night - in fact if we kids had organised a Mischief-Making Committee, I would have been chairman. Or at the very least, vice-chairman

I was at the forefront of annual sorties around the village that involved household items such as string, scissors and glue, as well as people's front doors and gates.

Some of the things we got up to were, I must admit, over the top, and I'm not altogether proud of my pranks - although watching the most snooty, obnoxious, child-hating man in the village open his front door to have a potted leylandii that was securely tied to the door knob fly into the hall remains hilarious to this day.

Anyway, enough of that. After a few decades of not making any mischief at all, I am back in the groove.

This week I shall be carrying out a series of tasks so mischievous that those on the receiving end will not know what has hit them. And my neighbours need not worry - I am carrying out these evil deeds in the comfort of my own home, and I am hoping that those they are directed against will learn something from them and mend their ways.

This is what I will be doing:

Tying my husband's trouser legs together, very tightly, right at the bottom, so when he picks them up from the floor - where he dropped them the night before -and tries to step into them, he will fall flat on his face. Hopefully, though, he will have learned his lesson and will not leave them in a heap on the carpet again.

Making "apple pie" beds - that's the trick where you cleverly fold the sheets so that, although the bed looks welcoming, you can't get into it - for both my daughters, in the hope that the experience will cajole them into making their own beds every morning.

Getting up in the middle of the night when everyone is fast asleep and turning all the lights on, including the lamps. This should wake everyone up and might make them all more alert to leaving lights blazing in every room in the house, wasting thousands of pounds in electricity.

Hiding everyone's shoes that are not on the shoe rack in a secret place until the owners are screaming with rage at not being able to leave the house. This might persuade my husband and daughters to use the rack - that, incidentally, I made with my own fair hands (the first self-assembly kit I've mastered).

This is what I intend to get up to on mischief night - and if things don't improve, I might just repeat the exercise the following week.

Updated: 08:36 Tuesday, November 01, 2005