The sound of Little Proclaims yodelling is not especially common, even in Proclaims Towers. Indeed I didn’t even know she could yodel and finding out about this new talent of hers is less than optimal at 9.30pm on a Sunday evening. Actually I’m not sure if bellowing “yodelay hee-hoo” at the top of her voice really counts as true yodelling. I’m not a connoisseur of the noble art of yodelling. I suspect it doesn’t count really.

It’s a moot point.

I shouldn’t be hearing yodelling, or even an approximation of yodelling coming from the shared bedroom of Little and Mini Proclaims at 9.30pm on a Sunday evening.

I shouldn’t be hearing anything at all.

Both my children should be asleep. In fact neither are.

This has been the norm of late. Ever since the UK decided to stop being a country of tepid unpredictable weather and decided instead to become the Mediterranean. With better queuing etiquette.

Like many UK homes, Proclaims Towers is not designed for hot weather. It’s a Victorian terrace house in Reading. Hot weather definitely would not have featured in the original designs. Proclaims Towers is designed very much to keep the heat in. Which is good in winter. Except that Proclaims Towers also seems built to keep all condensation in too, which is less good in winter.

But it does keep the heat in. Which is really not ideal during a heatwave. Which wasn’t a problem in the UK, but now apparently is.

And this is the hottest summer on record, by all accounts. Well by accounts of the people who know what the records are. And the upshot is, my kids aren’t sleeping, and Mrs Proclaims isn’t sleeping either.

All of which means I’m not sleeping.

Which would be fine if we’d adopted the siesta culture of other hot countries. Y’know, the ones that have been doing it longer than we have. But we haven’t. So I’m tired.

Which means I really don’t want to listen to my seven-year-old daughter yodelling at 9.30pm.

Although to be fair, in the time it’s taken me to write this she has stopped. And I think is now asleep. As I think is her sister.

Between the yodelling and the eventual succumbing to slumber, there were other noises coming from the bedroom of my children. Little Proclaims was telling jokes.

She likes to tell jokes.

The one I heard her telling Mini Proclaims was this: “I know a joke about butter. I’d tell you but you might spread it.”

Not terrible. A reasonable play on words.

Nonetheless a play on words that would be lost on most four-year-olds I imagine.

Very much lost on Mini Proclaims, who still mainly speaks French.

Actually, in fairness, her English has come on significantly this year, since she started nursery. But still my youngest child is far less inclined to laugh at wordplay so much as the word ‘poo’.

Although as someone who works in a secondary school, I can tell you that the word ‘poo’ still has a fair bit of traction with 15-year-olds.

Poo knew?