IN MY teens and twenties I was a sci-fi fan. In fact, I read little else in between watching episodes of Star Trek (the original five-year mission).

I never thought of myself as a nerd because I’m not sure the term was invented back then, but these days such single-minded devotion to something so far removed from reality would almost certainly earn me the title.

If I’d been born later in the 20th century I would probably have become addicted to computer games and joined an online community of similarly-smitten nerds.

As it is I have given up sci-fi for more eclectic reading matter and I’d rather bite my thumbs off than wear them out using a gaming console. But the future still intrigues me and I’ll watch old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation back to back on a rainy Sunday afternoon if I have nothing better to do, which, admittedly, is not very often.

When I was a child my second favourite television programme was Tomorrow’s World with its outrageous glimpses of the future and unlikely (or so it seemed) inventions.

I remember seeing a prototype video recorder. “Viewers will be able to record television programmes and watch them at their convenience,” the presenter said. Somewhat shortsightedly we laughed at the thought such technology would become commonplace. Who needed it? Why, we positively enjoyed keeping our Thursday evenings free to watch Top of the Pops. It gave the week a pleasing routine and sense of anticipation.

Robots were a fairly common theme on the show, in all their many helpful guises. But with the silicon chip newly-invented and computer science in its infancy these were crude, clumsy and fairly useless machines.

In fact, robots in human form have not become the universal household helpers that many science fiction writers thought they would. Isaac Asimov’s I Robot saw a future with androids performing all sorts of functions to help human society but up to date we have not needed the Laws of Robotics.

Today we have many manufacturing processes that are automated and our homes are stuffed with useful technology – dishwashers, DVD players, burglar alarms, WiFi etc – but there are still no household androids.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the 21st century has been the growth of mobile phone technology and the fact that we can all say “Beam me up, Scotty” whenever we want (although I’m still waiting for Firstborn to invent instant matter transfer).

However, this Christmas we welcomed a new addition to the family that goes some way to meeting my youthful expectations of what life in the future would be like.

My brother bought us a vacuum cleaning robot, which according to the manual was created by the iRobot Corporation. Hopefully it will not turn on us when machines take over the world Terminator-style.

I was very excited because there was a time when I imagined that the corridors of the USS Enterprise were kept clean with such gadgets and now we have one of our own.

“What shall we call it,” said Secondborn, who has always enjoyed naming things.

“It already has a name,” I replied. “It’s called Roomba.”

We installed Roomba’s docking bay under the sideboard and charged it up overnight. Then the next day I pressed the ‘clean’ button and installed myself on the sofa to read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, while it whizzed, whirred, rotated and trundled about picking up fluff and cat fur.

Half an hour later I carried Roomba into The Girl’s bedroom and set it down on the floor. “Get it out of here,” shouted Secondborn, who for some reason has taken badly to this new member of the family.

The feeling must have been mutual because almost as if on cue Roomba stopped whirring and announced in a rather cultured female voice; “Move Roomba to a new location.”

“It doesn’t like your room anyway,” I said, picking it up somewhat protectively.

“Are you cradling it?” said Secondborn, suspiciously. “You are, aren’t you?”

I denied it but have to admit that I was starting to find it difficult not to attribute a personality to something that can find its own way home (to the docking bay) and talks, even if it is just to complain.

Roomba, in fact, looks like little more than a smallish, black saucer. “What it needs,” I said to The Girl, “is a little face drawing on it. To make it seem friendly and cute.”

She thinks I’m going mad, but I’m just newfangled.

In the afternoon I took Roomba upstairs and set it cleaning the bedroom and hall while we went for a walk. When we returned the carpet was speck-free and the robot was sitting passively in the middle of the floor.

“I feel as if I ought to be praising it,” I said to a friend later when I rang to tell her all about Roomba.

And so, after all these years, we have finally welcomed a robot into our house and, you know what, I quite like it, even if the cats and The Girl are less than enthusiastic.

Now all I need is a gardening robot and a chef robot because I already have an ironing fairy – my kindly and decidedly unrobotic mum.