HOME is where the heart is – and where your grown-up children are probably still hogging the sofa and the remote control. More children than ever are living at home – three million at the last count – long past the age when they should have flown the nest.

They even have a name “failed fledglings”

which seems a bit harsh.

We probably made them too comfortable.

Decent bedrooms, constant hot water, food, laundry. Girlfriends/ boyfriends welcome to stay.

No wonder they’re not rushing to escape to beans on toast in a shared flat with a dodgy boiler and arguments over washing up and rubbish bins.

Most of them are in their twenties.

Quite a few are in their thirties.

Some are still living at home when they’re 40. So? Is that really so terrible?

Both my sons bounced back home for short times for various reasons and then bounced off again, before getting properly established. I liked having them around.

Of course, it’s better if adult children are earning enough and are confident enough to set up their own homes. If they’ve never had to cook their own meals, do their own washing, sort out a leaky tap or broken window, or pay their own gas bill, then it’s time they learned. You can live at home and still be a grown-up.

But it’s not much more than a generation since children stayed at home until they were married. If they never married, they mostly carried on staying at home. Jobs and careers might take a few away but they were still in the minority.

Even National Service lads generally came home again. It was only in the 1970s when huge numbers of 18- year-olds started going off to university that it suddenly became the norm to spread your wings, try life on your own as a matter of routine.

That, and the yearning for a sex life in comfort.

Even so, many young couples started married life with the parents.

Many widowed parents moved in with middle-aged sons and daughters.

Aged aunts and orphaned children were all thrown into the mix.

Since time began, family life and homes have been endlessly flexible and accommodating.

So why should it be any different today?

AS money’s short, more of us are planning a “staycation”

this year – holidaying at home instead of abroad.

Though actually, hotels, eating out, parking and admission charges in this country are all so horrendously expensive, that a holiday abroad with a beach and guaranteed sunshine is often cheaper.

But if you’re really staying in your own home for the summer, the best way to have a holiday is to invite people to stay. Why is it that only when we have visitors do we bother to get out and about and see what’s on our doorstep?

It also means that you see what’s around you with the fresh eyes of a stranger.

Refreshing – and nearly as good as a proper holiday.

IT’S not wrinkles or the creaky knees, nor even the lost ability to party all weekend and still totter into work on a Monday morning that makes me feel my age.

No. The worst part of growing up is the disillusionment with those in charge.

Years ago I thought politicians were cleverer than me, that they understood how the world worked in a way beyond my comprehension.

Not any more.

Too often now, I think: how can politicians be so dim? With a few honourable exceptions, too many of them have as much common sense as your average teenager after a night on cheap cider. Remember those expenses.

All those great tribes of advisers and they still – all parties – get policies hopelessly wrong. Why don’t they ask someone who actually knows stuff?

And calling your key supporters “swivel-eyed loons” was never going to be a smart move.

Now, when the rest of us have tightened our belts so hard we’re squeaking, MPs want to give themselves a stonking great pay rise.

No wonder the grown-ups are disillusioned...