I'm sure I read somewhere that the most popular activity during Easter these days was DIY.

Given that so much of our green and pleasant land is out of bounds at the moment, this weekend is sure to see another huge surge in the profits of home improvement centres.

All those families who would otherwise have been stuck in traffic jams on the A27 during the Easter break now find themselves in trolley jams in B&Q.

All those dads, who were once getting as overheated as their Morris Minors, now get as overheated as their power drills.

All those mums, who were once trying to calm down the dads on the roads, now try to calm down the dads at the top of stepladders.

And all those kids who used to whine: "Are we nearly there yet?" have changed their reprise to: "Is it nearly finished yet?"

In our house, thankfully, we like to keep old traditions alive. Faced with four days away from the office, my husband and I have planned a huge range of activities that totally precludes anything domestic.

Picnic on the beach, lunch out with friends in Surrey, lunch out with my parents in Kent, a house-warming party in Hove, a trip to Legoland in Windsor.

We haven't even got time to dust.

My husband, bless him, was going to tackle a couple of major DIY projects last weekend.

But he was thwarted by fate, yet again. Painting the bathroom floor (yes, the saga continues) is on hold because we've discovered a leaking pipe. "Would you believe it?" said my husband, feigning disappointment at having to put away his new brush.

Our bedroom, once a room of white calm and simplicity, now resembles the storeroom for a jumble sale and desperately needs a make-over and a clear-out.

We were all set to do it last Sunday when we noticed that a bit of damp that we thought had been sorted out by reputable damp specialists had reappeared.

"It makes me so cross," said my husband, downing his tools in mock fury. "Shall we go out to lunch?"

So here we are, Easter weekend, with a pile of jobs that need to be done if we have any hope of selling our house this summer.

Instead, we've chosen to get overheated on all the major highways of the South-East.

Actually, it's been quite hard searching out people who don't have busy DIY schedules. And I suppose there's still a chance we might be roped into helping them do a few of their chores.

I've a feeling that my parents may turn "lunch out" into lunch at theirs, with my husband, myself and our three-year-old, Eve, being expected to sow lettuce seeds.

While the house-warming party, could, according to past experiences, easily become a wallpaper-stripping party.

Hopefully, there's no danger of anything too domestic happening at Legoland, unless we chance upon a large pile of spare, plastic bricks.

Eve is then likely to say: "Daddy, will you build me big, big, big house?"

And her Lego-loving daddy is bound to oblige. To scale.