Who's The Daddy: Being empty nesters sometimes has its perks

Your kids are with you day in, day out for the first 18 years of their lives.

And of course, sometimes it can feel like a lot longer. Months of broken sleep with teething infants, bored toddlers on gloomy, rainy days and surly teens gawping at their phones all through Christmas dinner. Yeah, tough times.

Every plan you make revolves around them. Childcare, sleepovers, holidays, you name it. They’re first priority and you are a lot further down the pecking order, somewhere between the dog and your least whiny, disagreeable cat.

But have a guess how long, on average, your adult kids are in your company between their 18th birthday and the day that you’re in an urn on the mantelpiece. Go on. Guess. One year. Yep. That’s all.

If you add up all the birthdays, Christmases, flying visits to get their washing done and a decent feed for free, you’ve got them for roughly 12 months. They’re out there living their lives in rented flats and shared houses while you rattle around your family home like some ghost of the past.

Yeah, it’s a lot to take in. A fun fact me and the boss mulled over as we knocked back ice cold European lager outside a sunny canal side pub last Saturday afternoon. See, being empty nesters does have its occasional upside, even at £5 a pint.

Thankfully, one of the side effects of losing a lot of weight quite quickly (15 per cent of my body weight in six months and getting type 2 diabetes into remission) is that you become what used to be known as a two-pot screamer.

What was once a warm up (three chilled pints) is now the main event. Maybe it’s because there’s a lot less of you than there used to be so the booze in your system is a lot less diluted, I don’t know. Is that why you get called a lightweight? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Whatever, if you’re watching the pennies then it makes enchanting afternoons out suddenly more affordable, even at Scandinavian-style prices.

I know it’s not big and it’s not clever, but I haven’t been drunk in a pub on £15 since I was at sixth form. And I daren’t tell you how long ago that was.

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