WITH holiday time in full swing there are, according to an article I was reading, lots of people in a high old state of anxiety about leaving their homes unattended while they are away. No longer can people go away in the sure and certain knowledge that everything in there when they went will be there when they arrive home. And not only the home, because some people stagger back up the garden path with their suitcases to find their favourite rhododendrons are missing, someone has made off with their gnomes and wrenched their fountain out of their water feature. The good news for those who hate gardening, particularly mowing the lawn, will be that someone has been in the shed and nicked the lot. Sadly, no longer can we who live in country areas boast that we never lock the door because those days are gone forever. I remember that when I was a child we went away for two weeks and returned home to find that not only had my mother forgotten to lock the front door but that she had actually left it wide open. The hall was full of leaves and post, but nobody had bothered to shut the door, and that included the next door neighbour who said she didn't like to interfere. As she was on duty practically 24 hours a day peering at whoever visited, we found this strange but no harm was done, the houses and contents were entirely untouched although a trifle dusty. Today, the house could have been stripped down to the dust. I note from the article that the most sought-after security for holidaying people is to employ a house-sitter, which will firstly involve giving a stranger the complete run of their home for a couple of weeks or so, albeit presumably a stranger who comes with cast iron references. They hope! Secondly, this person is paid something like £140 a week for the privilege of using their house and all its facilities, running up enormous electricity bills and having eight showers a day. You gather that this article wasn't aimed at people living in Cornwall, or not many of them anyway. And in case anyone runs a house sitting service here, I'm only allowing my imagination to run away with me, a flight of fancy which I'm sure wouldn't apply to any reputable company. That's the legal bit out of the way... Looking after someone else's house is a big responsibility and, although I've never house-sat, I have on occasions done animal feeding, plant watering and blind-raising-up-and-dropping down duties. The latter is to fool would-be thieves who might be keeping their own eye on the house, and would, if they were to note that the half-raised blinds in the morning were now down in the evening, be put off from breaking in. That is if they didn't note the person running in at 7pm each night and wrestling with the blind to put it in the down position, only to return at 8am the next morning to raise it again. It's a bit like the on/off light in the hall. What a real winner that is, only deterring the thief with the one working brain cell. My most recent blind-raising duty ended in disaster when I pulled the wrong cord and the whole blind came off, leaving me frantically trying to wind yards of it back onto its roller. I am quite happy to water plants when people are away, after all if you forget one and kill it you can always rush out and buy a similar one and hope they won't notice. It's not quite the same thing with pets. I once looked after an elderly dog, who wouldn't have been happy to be either in kennels or in someone else's house, so I visited him three times a day. His owner had prepared tasty little meals for him and frozen them and all I had to do was to defrost two for each day, hopefully in time for the crunch to have gone out of the meat. The only problem was he wouldn't eat. Day after day I tried to tempt him but he merely turned his head away and trotted gloomily off. I bought tins of dog food, tried cooked chicken breast, even some nice underdone roast beef from home, but he wanted none of it. I had visions of his owners arriving back to find the worst had happened. And what would I do if it had? How would I break the news? Somehow a note 'plants fine, dog in freezer' wouldn't suffice. I was lucky that his owners were away for just over a week, so he survived on his self-administered diet of fresh air and sips of water and as soon as they were back started eating again. Writing this reminds me that I once worked in an office (not this one) which was, to say the least, a bit untidy. One night the keyholder was called out at 2am to say the office had been broken into and ransacked. The keyholder had to tell the police that this wasn't the case. One of the reporters had probably forgotten to lock the door and the office always looked as if it had been ransacked, or if it had nobody could tell the difference.

In the same weekend paper it said there was an increasing trend for children to move back in with their parents after going it alone for a time. Now isn't that good news for those of you who have just prised loose an adult child and reclaimed a spare room after 25 years? Just as you think it is safe to turn it into a study, back they'll be coming. I know this story. My son once left on the Wednesday to travel the world and was back on the Sunday. I can't remember why. I think it was raining. He wasn't best pleased to find that I'd chucked out his bed and turned his room into a sewing room. I think he mumbled something about the bed hardly being cold and something else about me never doing much sewing as far as he could remember. When children first leave home they get a huge culture shock. They may be delighted with their new-found freedom but suddenly they find out that they have to buy all those little boring things like washing up liquid, tea towels, washing powder, shampoo, salt, dustbin bags, lavatory paper etc. All the things that they have been using without a thought for years, little realising that someone has had to hand over hard cash for them. Mums usually take pity and let them continue to raid the larder and bring their washing home, but that's what mums are for. I can foresee a bit of trouble if an adult child moves back in. After years of doing what they want to do when they want to do it they may not take kindly to being asked where they're going, who they're going to meet and what time will they be home. Boyfriends and girlfriends could produce a problem or two as well. As teenagers it was quite acceptable to police the hallways after dark, a 32-year-old may have a few objections when mum knocks on his or her bedroom door at 11pm and asks when so and so is going home because dad wants to lock up. Mind you, when it comes to money they may be only too happy to revert to a teenager again and try to hand over £20 for a weeks bed and board, just as they reluctantly used to do all those years ago.

Finally, we've been having a few ups and downs at home about the stray cat, and, according to who you listen to, it's all my fault. The vet says I've done the wrong thing by encouraging the cat (by feeding it) . To be honest, I know that. I knew it the day I opened a tin of supermarket own brand rabbit and chicken in jelly, which, I now confess, I had bought specially for the stray because I didn't want it to get as fussy as the other two. It turned its nose up at the cheapo brand anyway and I had to replace it with something a bit more up-market. Now, apparently, the other two cats are unhappy because the stray fights with them and wants to usurp their position in the household. The stray will be unhappy if I stop feeding him (or her, we haven't liked to look) and telling him or her what a handsome boy or girl he or she is. All three may need considerable counselling to get back to being happy cats again and I'll probably need counselling to get over the guilt. Next time I see something black and white in the bushes I'll resist the urge to say 'here, pussy pussy'.