CHILDREN have a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time..."Dad, are you going to get a wig?" - Christopher, aged ten, just as I was convincing myself in front of the mirror that it wasn't really a bald patch, just a bad haircut.

"Mum, can I come and sleep in your bed?" - Max, aged three, on the night of our 12th anniversary, just as the flame of romance was starting to grow from a flicker to an Olympic torch.

"Look, that man's got big boobies, hasn't he Daddy." - Hannah, when she was three, as a fat man joined us in the jacuzzi at a local health club.

But of all the wrong things they've said at the wrong time, nothing has pained me quite as much as the words which greeted me as I stepped through the door after my ill-fated trip to Birmingham.

I'd travelled to the Midlands the night before to collect a national award from the RSPCA for The Northern Echo's work in highlighting animal cruelty.

I'd arrived safely in my hotel and even had time for a relaxing swim and 15 minutes in the jacuzzi with two men, neither of whom had particularly big boobies.

The award was duly collected the next morning and I set off on the homeward journey, eager to be back reasonably early because it was our eldest's tenth birthday.

At Birmingham railway station, the 12.45pm Virgin service to Darlington had been delayed by a line blockage at Chesterfield.

I waited the best part of an hour before the train finally arrived and I was grateful to settle into my first-class seat and empty my brief case onto the table so I could work on the journey.

The train didn't move. Then a scratchy tannoy message crackled through the carriage: "This train is being converted into the Aberdeen service, so please get off." Or words to that effect.

I gathered up my papers and got off. We then waited at least another hour on the platform - with precious little information - for another promised train to arrive.

It never came. Another scratchy message: "Would passengers travelling to York and Darlington please make their way to the front of the station where a bus will take them to York." Or words to that effect.

A groan echoed along the platform but we did as we were told. At the front of the station, I looked up and down for a luxury coach but there was only a grubby old double-decker.

Oh my God, our bus was the double-decker. I looked around for Jeremy Beadle but he was nowhere to be seen.

This was no ordinary double-decker. It was a smelly, cold, double-decker that appeared unable to go faster than three miles an hour up the slightest incline. I swear we were overtaken by a hedgehog walking up the hard-shoulder of the A1 somewhere near Pontefract.

Apart from a 15-minute break for a sandwich and the toilet, we were crammed on that bus for the best part of four hours. Anyone with long legs, like me, had to travel with their knees on their chins and I happened to be sat next to a poor mum struggling to keep her grizzly two-year-old amused. Talk about cruelty to animals... If I'd bumped into Richard Branson, I would have said something like: "Excuse me Mr Branson, ever so sorry to trouble you, but is it any wonder your balloon never makes it round the world when you can't even get people from Birmingham to Darlington without turning them into physical and emotional wrecks?"

By the time we eventually reached York, I was so stiff that I could only hobble off the bus.

The half-hour wait for a train connection to Darlington sent the blood pressure beyond danger point and it was past 8.30pm by the time I finally staggered through the door.

That's when the birthday boy said it: "Hi Dad - had a good trip?"