My children's burgeoning swimming career has taken another cruel twist.

When they first joined the club I worried that three evenings a week spent in a pool was too tough a regime for any child. However, they took to it like the proverbial fish.

With me working days and my husband working nights, we developed a unique system of dealing with the chauffeur problem: we have a certain traffic light perfectly timed to enable us to hand over the car from one to the other in town without holding up traffic.

The kids swim away, blissfully unaware and unconcerned about which parent picked them up. Then, a couple of months back, the club suggested my elder daughter would benefit with the addition of an 8 a.m. training session on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

She pleaded and begged to be allowed to go. As I agreed, I saw the last vestiges of my social life swirl around and around and disappear down the plug hole.

Weekends mornings were then taken on board and my late nights went out with a whimper. Our house steadily came to resemble a souk, where damp and drying towels hung on anything that was available to hold them - radiators, clothes horses and the backs of chairs.

Then, this morning brought a new dawn. According to my alarm, it's a 5.30 a.m. dawn, to be precise. The daughter now goes swimming from 6 a.m. until 7.30 a.m. It's only once a week at the moment, she tells me.

I'm trying to convince myself.