Daughter has been ill with that nasty gastric flu and ended up in bed for a few days. She is now better, if a bit thin and interestingly pale.

I am sure once she regains her usual pizza consumption levels she will make a speedy recovery.

While she was still unwell but not desperately ill, I decided to clear out her bedroom.

This was because, for once, I had done all the ironing and realised there was no room in her wardrobe for anything else.

"Do you wear all these clothes?" I asked.

"No, not really, some of don't really fit any more," she said.

Looking around her room, I realised every surface was covered and every drawer was bursting.

"Right," I said, "you lie there and just say yes or no and we'll go through everything."

'Okay,' she said relieved I wasn't about to drag her out of bed and make her do it.

We started with the wardrobe where I rapidly got rid of three very inappropriate T-shirts, against her will, four pairs of jeans, some old tops and jumpers, one of which was her favourite when she was four, and some shoes that had been lurking at the bottom of the wardrobe for at least three years.

Daughter kept calling out, "that's my favourite, I want to keep it, it nearly fits," but in the interests of finding some room to hang the ironing I was firm.

I also realised she always wears jeans because her wardrobe only consists of jeans. She has one black skirt, for school concerts and the like, and no dresses.

I offered to take her shopping for something pink and girly when she was better but she just hid under the duvet.

Then we moved on to the bookshelves. These were groaning under the weight of assorted magazines and collections of things she has gathered over the years.

We went round the rest of the room in a similar fashion and gradually the floor appeared.

At the end we had four bin bags of jumble sale fodder.

Daughter's room now has chests of drawers with space and I can hang up the ironing.

I know it won't last because she'll just start acquiring things again and filling everything up but at least she'll have somewhere to put it.