Hands up all those who actually enjoyed the run-up to the Scottish referendum.

By the time you read this we will know the results and whether or not those of us who spend their summer holiday north of the border will be needing a passport next August.

Actually, far from finding the campaign rather tedious, as I do at General Election time, I found it very exciting.

Like most people, I was dismayed when the arguments went beyond being angry and noisy and turned positively vicious, but most of the time, I admired the heat and the colour of the debate, because they demonstrated the strength of feeling people have about Scotland.

At the time of writing, I estimated the vote would be split roughly 49/51 per cent, (though I didn’t know in whose favour this would be), which means because more than 90 per cent of those eligible registered to vote – an unprecedentedly high figure – we can be certain right now, one half of Scots people are feeling pretty miserable.

For entirely selfish reasons, I think this is a shame.

You see, my family and I try to spend a week every summer on the east coast of Scotland, near St Andrew’s, and such is our affection for the place, we’d hate to be greeted with anything other than the enthusiastic welcome and goodwill we always receive. 

Our routine is the same every year; my husband gets to dust off his golf clubs and for reasons known only to them, our children spend their days arguing on the tennis courts or freezing in the North Sea as they get dragged behind a speed boat on one sort of inflatable or another – which could be a banana, a doughnut or this year’s innovation, a wing (no, me neither) – while I work very hard at doing absolutely nothing.

I’m not remotely sporty, which makes the little resort we stay in an odd choice of holiday destination for me, but I love the small-town friendliness of the place and the independence (ha!) it gives our daughters, who feel safe enough to wander around on their own, although better together with one another.

I’m not going to tell you the name of this quaint little resort in case you decide to go there for your own holidays, but I will say it’s just the sort of place I’d like to retire to, so I can take bracing walks along the cliff tops and read novels in my overcoat on the beach.

So cheer up those of you who came second in the referendum.

Both sides debated with a passion and vigour that puts many English politicians to shame and Yes or No, you did your best for your beautiful country.

National pride doesn’t come much better.

Am I the only mother who seems to spend her life nagging her children to help with the housework or hiding things from them?

When they were old enough to toddle their way around a room by hanging on to any available upright object – table leg, chair, or on one memorably destructive occasion, a standard lamp – I had to make sure coffee cups and knives were pushed beyond their reach.

Later on, I had to find ever more ingenious places in which to hide sweets, biscuits and anything that glistened, such as earrings and necklaces.

Needless to say, however clever I thought I was being, my children always outwitted me, both in retrieving whatever I had hidden and avoiding any kind of housework.

As my daughters approached their teens, I found I was having to hide perfume or my tights under the bed or inside the loo roll and my husband took to putting his after-shave (the best zit-zapper ever, apparently) in his underwear drawer.

Now, if my adolescent daughters are going to get any sleep at night and if we hope even to have eye contact, never mind a few precious minutes of civilised conversation at the meal table, it’s their new iPhones we have to tuck away somewhere.

I’ve tried my sewing basket, the washing machine and my husband’s DIY box, all to no avail.

But this week, I think I have found a solution to both my frustrations.

Don’t tell my daughters, but henceforth, I’m going to hide their iPhones in the cupboard where I keep the ironing-board and the vacuum cleaner.

It’s one of the few places my children never, ever venture.

And when they do manage to sniff out their phones, guess what?

They get them back, but only on condition they do 20 minutes hard labour with the iron or the Hoover.