ANOTHER family holiday over - a holiday which made me realise more than ever before how quickly they're growing up. It probably had a lot to do with six of us being crammed into a mobile home the size of an average garden shed as the worst rains in 50 years lashed down on Holland.

It definitely had something to do with the fact that our four-year-old has become obsessed with singing a certain Tom Jones song at the top of his voice wherever he goes: "SEX BOMB, SEX BOMB, YOU'RE MY SEX BOMB, YOU CAN GIVE IT TO ME WHEN I NEED TO COME ALONG. . ."

Quite what the old woman in front of us in the supermarket queue made of it is anyone's guess.

It undoubtedly had a great deal to do with the fact that the years of carrying one after the other on my shoulders are coming to an end. I can just about manage a five-minute stint with the youngest and I'm done for.

But it was our first visit to the campsite swimming complex which underlined the unbelievable acceleration of their growth rate.

The six of us squeezed into a family changing cubicle and Mum handed out the swimming costumes - except for mine. "Didn't you pack my trunks?" I asked.

"No, didn't you? They're your trunks - I've got the kids to worry about," she replied. (You know the kind of thing.)

Then our eldest held up his spare trunks: "How about these, Dad?"

He's an 11-year-old who is going through the kind of metamorphosis that The Incredible Hulk endured during every episode. One minute they're cute, the next minute you look up and they're great brutes, bursting through their shirts and trousers before your very eyes.

Nevertheless, he's still only 11 - he hasn't started secondary school yet. How could I possibly fit into his spare trunks?

The bottom line was that I had no alternative but to give it a try. And, incredibly - with a tug and a squeeze - I got them on! They were so tight that I couldn't bend down to pick up my socks, but the trunks covered what it was necessary to cover.

Problem solved. But then it transpired that I'd lost my contact lenses so I had to go into the pool wearing my glasses.

It requires explanation at this point that when a man approaches 40, it becomes important to him that he can still feel sexy. In swimming pools the world over, middle-aged dads are holding in their stomachs and convincing themselves that bikini-clad young girls are eyeing them up.

Imagine how I felt, waddling around like a four-eyed Donald Duck in my son's trunks. The Nutcracker Suite could have been written especially for me.

What's more, my specs steamed up so quickly that I was also blindly walking into walls, pool-side chairs, and people. I swear I actually apologised to myself in the toilet when I bumped into a mirror.

Sex bomb? I couldn't turn a tap on.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

A letter has arrived from a Grandma whose grandson Craig was four-years-old and having an argument with another little boy about who had the best 'Nanna'.

Whatever Craig said, the other boy could better it. Craig began to lose his temper and was heard to cry out: "Well, my Nanna is 65 and she can still fart."

Her identity is a closely-guarded secret but her letter was signed "The Windy Granny".

*The second Dad At Large book is on sale at Northern Echo offices and Ottakars in Darlington priced £5. £1 goes to the Butterwick Children's Hospice.

Published: Friday, August 24, 2001