As my 16 year old apprentice has gone back for his last year at school I discovered I had a spare teenager in the house who turned out to be more than willing to fill the vacancy in the sewing room. Not the coolest job (unlike the modelling or photographing he had been doing, which is marginally cooler, I suppose), helping your mum with the sewing but “it is what it is” – his words. So, here I am listening to music I would never normally listen to, very educational…..

I feel very privileged actually to have had the opportunity to spend a few hours a day with some of my teenagers, I bet there aren’t many mums out there who have the chance to do this. The latest trainee has even volunteered to have a go at the sewing machine, we’ll start with some straight sewing, it’s not as easy as some people think.

My children have been fascinated with my sewing machine from quite an early age, I suppose it’s a very satisfying thing to do, even at a young age when you have to put a box on the floor for the pedal to go on so they can reach it. The myriad of stitches on a sewing machine seems to be particularly fascinating for them, although in reality I don’t use half of them.

Alas the quilts we started at the start of lock down have not progressed at all, hopefully there will be time in a few weeks, when presumably everybody will be kitted out with face masks!