IT has been clear to me for quite some time that women think there's something wrong with us men. And it was the usual story at the schoolgates on the morning the village mums went off on their annual "get-away-from-it-all" weekend. The mud-slinging was coming from all directions: "Ooh, will you manage?" "How are you going to survive?" "Will you be OK on your own?" gushed a succession of half-smiling mums.

I actually got quite cross with one of them who, a full week before the mums' mass departure, looked at me as if I was about to fight the Taliban single-handed and asked in a whisper: "How are you going to cope with them all?" Anyway, the mums went off on Friday lunchtime - 14 of them in search of peace, quiet, relaxation and lots of wine at Oasis in the Lake District, not to return until Monday.

At school pick-up on Friday afternoon, Caroline, the daughter of one of the breakaway mums, passed with a sarcastic grin and said: "Survived so far?"

And she's only 11! How early do they start thinking that we're an inferior race?

I was going to complain to her dad - another perfectly capable, home alone father-of-four - when I passed him coming out of McDonald's an hour or so later, but I let it go.

With chicken nuggets, fries and cola keeping them content, the first evening passed without mishap and Mum rang just after 9.30pm.

Yes, they'd arrived safely and, yes, they were having a jolly nice time. They'd been for a swim but hadn't done much else.

She rang again the following night, just as I was settling down with my expertly-cooked beans on toast.

"Are you managing?" she asked.

"Fine," I said, omitting to mention how I'd been weed on by our youngest in the early hours.

"Good. We're having a great time," she said, before explaining that four of them had been for 'rasul'.

"What's a rasul?" I asked.

"Well," she said, taking one of those deep breaths which means there's a long explanation coming. "You go into this room and you have to strip off and plaster each other with mud. It's hard to reach your own back so someone has to do it for you. Sue did mine and I did hers.

"You can leave your swimming costumes on if you like, or you can wear these paper pants. What the hell - we wore the paper pants.

"So you sit in a steam room, wearing paper pants, with white mud on your face, silver mud on your body and brown mud on your legs because it's different types of mud for different parts of the anatomy. And then after an hour these really powerful showers come on and wash it all off. It's fantastic."

Hang on, I thought to myself, let me get this straight. The mums of Hurworth go off to relax and get away from the kids for a while, and the highlight of their weekend is smothering each other in mud while wearing nothing but paper pants.

DON'T EVER TELL ME THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH MEN!

THE THINGS THEY SAY

JUNE Thomas writes from Stockton to tell me how she wanted to buy her grandson a v-neck jumper but he was adamant he didn't want it.

"My teacher's got one like that and every time she bends down you can see her lungs," he cried.

* Peter Barron will be signing copies of his book, Dad At Large 2, in the reception of The Northern Echo's head office in Priestgate, Darlington, between 10am and noon on Saturday, December 15. Come and meet him and have a free mince pie. The book costs £5, makes a great stocking-filler, and £1 per copy goes to the Butterwick Children's Hospice.