ABOUT a hundred years ago when I was on my first break home from university I went out for a supper with a group of old school friends and in line with our new student life-style the evening went on longer than expected and we ended up back at someone's house carrying on with the fun.

What I'd forgotten in my three months as a free and easy student is that while what happens in uni stays in uni, back home in Aber there are fearful parents, who by 12.30 were convinced that I'd driven their car into a ditch...which is why at 1.30 they came a-knocking at my friend's front door to drag me home!

To add insult to their already sky high injury, I'd managed to leave the car headlights switched which apparently was the straw which broke the camels back -once they’d realised I was safe and enjoying a coffee and an in-depth debate on the meaning of life.

It's an incident The Mother manages to bring up every time I meet up with my oldest school friend, whose house I was ignominiously dragged out of.

As we prepared for our annual pre-Christmas meeting this year The Mother once again reminded me of this incident and of course it came in conversation over dinner as my oldest friend - she is two months older than me - retold the tale to her son and the housemate.

“Do I dare invite you back for a coffee?” she asked as we left the restaurant.

“I’m almost 60. I think I’m allowed out by myself now,” I replied heading off to check the headlights on the car.

After several hours of reminiscing, putting the world to rights and realising that we do now finally sound like our parents, the housemate glanced at her watch.

“It’s gone midnight, I think we should make a move for home,” she announced as the three of us moaned and groaned our way to our feet much to the amusement of the sole young person in the room.

As we headed for the door the housemate’s phone rang. “It’s your mother,” she said glancing at the screen.

“Why is she ringing you at this time of night?” I asked convinced something horrendous had happened.

“She was worried about us,” replied the housemate as she finally hung up.

“Why was she worried about us?” I asked with a sinking feeling of deja vu.

“She checked on her tracker and noticed that we hadn’t moved for three hours and was afraid that we’d been attacked on our way home! She’d tried your phone and there was no reply so she was having a panic!”

“At least she didn’t come hammering on the door this time,” said my friend who would probably have fallen to the floor with laughter if her arthritic hips had allowed it!

When we finally got home I phoned The Mother.

“Seriously? Again?” I asked in horror.

“I go for an Indian and a cup of coffee and you’re chasing me while my sister is on a pub crawl in Chester and gets nothing?”

“I checked on your sister and her tracker just says she’s in Chester and nowhere near a hospital or police stattion so I assumed she was safe. You’d been in Monk Street for three hours without moving so I was worried about you. It was the Christmas lights switch on so anything could have happened to you.”

“What were you expecting? That I’d been taken hostage by Santa and his Elves? I asked in exasperation. “We’re all ancient now - our idea of a wild night is taking a punt on a fully caffeinated coffee after 9pm!”