WITH the prospect of two children on the horizon Ben’s dad and I took ourselves off for a cheeky little weekend without our son and heir in the hope of getting some ‘us time’ in before chaos once again descended.

Having deposited little man at Nanny’s we started our two days of quietness with a pub lunch that refreshingly we didn’t have to double check whether they did fishfingers.

Taking our seats we took in the peaceful setting of the ancient Saxon walls set against the babbling river, we sat in near silence for the best part of ten minutes before one of us broke.

“I wonder what Ben’s up to?” his dad asked.

I was going to berate him for obsessing about our child but truth was I was thinking the same thing. We suddenly panicked that we would not survive the two days and essentially bore each other to death as without Ben we seemed incapable of conversation.

Over the course of the day however, we eventually got into our stride and managed to steer the conversation onto other things away from our child and the prospect of what on earth we were going to do with two of them.

Instead decorating the house took centre stage and before he knew it Ben’s dad was promising me a new bathroom!

In truth it was quite a weird experience not actually having to do anything. Not that he is particularly demanding but as with any three-year- old it is all about ‘Me Me Me’!

Usually we try and plan days out or if we go away it is to launch ourselves into activities and attractions we know he will like.

But sitting there in our hotel room lazing around for an hour before making our way down to dinner, I felt almost guilty at the lack of action, but we struggled on.

By that evening though we were craving a cuddle and we put the call in to Nanny. After a couple of minutes chit-chat with my mother-inlaw it was clear Ben had been having a whale of a time at a local theme park, buying up pretty much all of the gift shop. When the time came to have a chat with the man himself it was embarrassingly clear he was not feeling the pain of separation. It was all she could do to get him to the phone where I am sure he simply said: “Yeah…later”.

The apparent lack of love from our son did in fact fuel our determination to make the most of the days ahead.

By the time we had finished our mini-break we had quite got used to the lie-ins, eating when we pleased and snoozing at random times of the day.

It cast us back to the heady days of prechild, but as nice as that was for a couple of days nothing beat the sight of Ben flinging himself into our arms on our return, maybe he did miss us just a tiny bit after all.