Ruth Walker: ‘I need to make something quick but healthy. I take a pizza out of the freezer’

Sigh. And, because I'm a full-time working mum plagued with constant guilt – and because I could kill for a cup of tea myself (actually, I'd rather have something stronger but I'm sworn off the mid-week merlot until after the half-marathon) – I put the kettle on for a brew.

I then run hot water into the sink full of dishes – whereupon I promptly forget about them until the water goes cold and scummy again. I'll eventually get round to washing them when, at 10.30pm and tucked up in bed, I realise they're still steeping, so steel myself to get out of my cocoon and belatedly wash them.

I feed the cat (I'd forgotten to do it in the morning so she's curling round my legs like a single, clown-sized fluffy slipper, miaowing loudly and threatening to trip me up with every step I take). She tucks in happily.

If only I could just open a 40p tin of fishy smelling mush for the children too, my life would be so much simpler (and cheaper). But I need to make dinner. Something quick but also healthy and nutritionally balanced. And something they will all like.

I take a pizza out of the freezer.

I finally get round to taking off my coat.

Recently, I've been thinking things will have to change. We're going to have to start eating together, properly, at the table, again. When did this happen? Possibly when I realised that I'm beginning to forget what my children look like. The Teenager works. Then parties. When I do see her, she has her face in her iPad.

The boys live in their room. It might as well be Barlinnie for the number of times they emerge, blinking in the sunlight, tentatively reconnecting with this strange and alien life on the outside.

There they sit, backs to each other, two sets of eyes focused on two separate TVs at either end of the room, hands glued to Xbox controllers, communicating with each other via headsets when (I'm no expert, but correct me if I'm wrong) they could just turn round and talk to each other instead. Ah, but where would be the fun in that?

When dinner is ready, they appear and the plates head back upstairs with them. I'm guessing the food gets eaten because, next thing I know, there are empty plates stacked on the cabinet outside their room. And so it goes on.

Intermittently, like a warden on a random cell search, I venture into their room on a mission to retrieve assorted abandoned items of crockery: half-drunk cups of tea; plates scattered with the skeletal remains of toast crusts; bowls bearing the cement-like detritus of long-dried-out cereal. More washing up.

That's when I give in and pour myself a glass of wine. Self-restraint is for people with perfect families. And with time on their hands. And dishwashers.