It can be awkward when another family moves in to live with you. Particularly when you and your wife have had the house to yourselves for a few years.

That’s what happened the other month when our daughter Sian, son-in-law Andrew and grand-daughter Jeannie came to stay.

But it has been no big deal. We have been used to sharing in the past.

Our home is family sized and we brought up two daughters in it and still found space for my parents in their old age.

The attic may not have been ideal, and their movements were certainly restricted when we removed the ladder, but we kept them well supplied with cold tea and bread and dripping that we sent up in a basket on a rope, and they had their own steam driven television for company.

So becoming an extended family again has been fine except for one aspect of my daughter’s behaviour. I’m talking about cooking.

For many years, Maria and I have taken the route of least resistance when it comes to eating. We buy food that is quick and easy to prepare, have take-aways and, if we can’t be bothered, eat out.

Eating is a bodily function. We don’t make a big deal about it. We are not gourmets. There are more important things to do than plan meals.

Contemplating your navel, for one.

But our daughter seems to have inherited her grandmother’s culinary genes.

She can be in the kitchen for hours. She uses the healthiest ingredients known to man and prepares everything meticulously, over every available surface. Sunday she made a lasagne. She started at 9am and by 2pm it was ready for the oven.

This is not unusual. A meal is a production. Andrew Lloyd Webber could put words and music to it and Gordon Ramsay could star.

“Why go to all that trouble?” I thought, but didn’t say. Well, you don’t, do you? “When you could buy one from M&S?”

In the meantime, I had a steak sandwich for lunch, which took 10 minutes, and we had samosas for supper when we got back from the pub.

Did my parents, years ago, view Maria and me with similar amazement when we opted out of traditional meals for vindaloo? Of course, we always appreciated my mother’s superb Sunday roast and Yorkshire puddings, but was the effort really worth it when, after hours in a steam filled kitchen, she looked like one of the witches from Macbeth?

Mind you, her eye of newt and toe of frog were very tasty.

So far, everyone has adapted to our new living arrangements (culinary aspects apart) with surprising ease. But I shall be on my guard in case Sian suggests Maria and me might be more comfortable in the attic.

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