This morning I woke up quite miserable because of bad dreams that had chased me through the night. I didn’t think facing actual human beings in this state was a good idea, but I needed coffee, which lay beyond the room where Abel, Catherine and Emma Jane were chatting together.

I walked in, and honestly told them I wasn’t doing great emotionally, and would appreciate some serious cheering up.

“I know what you need – a spanking!” Abel said merrily. “Come over here and bend over.”

Now, in all honesty, I wouldn’t recommend this approach to anybody else. Indeed, it sounds pretty flippant – oh, obviously a spanking is a response to everything! – and I wouldn’t even recommend it to Abel that he try it again.

And yet, he said this with such warmth and care, that I instantly felt like a spanking would really cure all my ills.

I bent over Abel’s lap, and received a dozen or so firm swats. They didn’t hurt any more than I could take, and you know what? I did feel better. Though mostly, I think, it was from laughing with Emma and Cath at Abel’s insistence that a spanking is the answer to everything.

Except, in this case, it really was.