I know, I know, you're meant to love them more than life itself and you'd willingly die for them if the need arose. But now and again when you've listened to them moan, whine, bitch, pinch, punch and slap each other day after day after day, then you need a break, otherwise you'll end up doing something they'll regret.

So on Saturday morning we got up, packed their bags and I drove them up to their nana's in Dalton-in-Furness more or less in total silence. It felt like the death throes of a doomed relationship – nothing to say and no real inclination to say it. We couldn't even be bothered listening to the radio, it really was that grim.

After the drop-off I tore back to the kid-free zone of my house and listened to the silence. No moaning, no whining, no bitching, no pinching, no punching and no slapping. I could actually feel the knot in my stomach unravel, my teeth stopped grinding and my face did something it hadn't done for a few days – it smiled.

When you've got your kids off your hands for a couple of days it never fails to amaze me how long your weekends are. You can do what you want when you want for as long as you want.

Fancy putting on your glad rags and going out for dinner in half an hour? That bike of yours you got fixed a couple of weeks ago, shall we take it for a ride up to Caton and back? I'm a bit knackered, I'm going for a snooze for an hour, that okay?

Me and my wife didn't want to paint the town red, when we'd finished it was more beige than scarlet, but by the time we picked the kids up we'd actually smiled at each other – more than once. And maybe, just maybe, we remembered why we live together in the first place.

But then late on Sunday night I got asked a question to which there is no correct answer. My response, whatever it is, is likely to land me in the doghouse so I might as well be honest. And the question in question? 'Have you missed the kids?'

Oh Gawd! What answer do you want to hear? What can I say that will get me off the hook? Why don't you ask me if I fancy your best friend? Why don't you ask me what I really think about your new frock? Why don't you ask me to sit through a three-hour Elizabethan costume drama that's totally indistinguishable from the last generic pile of old toss that scraped away at my soul and has left visible scars?

'Of course I missed them,' I lied through my teeth. 'Oh, I haven't' replied the brutally honest love of my life. 'Is that really bad?'

Sometimes even the finest mother on earth needs some respite care. And while our kids spent the weekend bouncing on the giant trampoline that belongs to the family who live next door to my mum, playing in the bespoke playhouse and going to bed when they damn well felt like it – the question we should be asking is 'did they miss us?' And their answer? 'Nah, not really.'

Fair do's, I suppose. But once we'd collected them it was time for us to return the favour. Mum's off on holiday this week with a mate and needed someone to look after her dog. Well, if he's anyone's dog he's ours. We lent him to her after she had to get her nasty, snarling hound put down two years ago after it bit her.

He left us as a whip-thin, springy, eight-year-old muscle-bound lurcher who chased squirrels up trees for fun. Two years of pampering and comfort eating have left him a stone overweight and with his once rock solid piston-like back legs reduced to the state of week-old party balloons.
So he's back at boot camp. Two long walks a day, his dinner and nothing else – no bacon, no chicken, no chips, no pizza crusts, no milk. Just dog food and water. That's it, pal.

Maybe he could join my wife and kids when they take part in the 5km Race for Life in Liverpool's Sefton Park on Sunday. He looks like he could do with the exercise. They're doing it for a much more worthy cause – raising money for Cancer Research UK – and have got their packs, vest numbers and everything.

Family and friends have sponsored our two girls, but if you're feeling generous and want to donate a few of your hard-earned pennies to a worthy cause then you could do a lot worse than to pop into the Lancaster Guardian office in Common Garden Street and hand over your loose change to our friendly receptionists to pass on to our kids to give to Cancer Research UK to help them beat cancer.