Last weekend I thought my husband had finally lost it. I was surprised at the time, because I have always expected the snap in the middle of one of my regular convoluted explanations of the family’s Saturday morning timetable. Often in the middle of the instructions for running kids to sport, animals to the vet, picking up dry cleaning, visiting friends and mowing the lawn, I can see the veins throbbing in his forehead and his eyes starting to roll back in his head.

Hence I was somewhat unprepared when he seemed to be losing his marbles when we were visiting his parents last weekend. He kept cocking his head on a strange angle and asking me if I could “hear that noise”. People, I’m telling you there was NO NOISE! But being a kind and sensitive soul, I suggested he fashion himself a nice tinfoil hat to keep the aliens away, and went about my business.

You should make note of the time and date right now, because I don’t write the following very often: It seems I was wrong. My in laws had installed a sensor to keep their dog away from the front fence. This sensor emits a sound heard only by dogs — and my husband, Scooby Doo. Thankfully a simple adjustment of the angle and the frequency solved matters. And now I know how to keep him out of the rhododendrons. Win-win.