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Confined to bed, Mike Coleman observes the ebb and flow of family life ...

One of the more innocent bedroom fantasies I’ve had over the years is to be inflicted with a not too debilitating condition which necessitates spending long periods lying still, doing nothing. So when, after a back operation earlier in the year, I was told I would need plenty of bed rest, I was quite looking forward to having my fantasy come true.

What’s gone wrong? Well, as my mum used to say, apart from everything, nothing at all. For example, I fully intended to finish the book that’s been lying in a bottom drawer for six years. And no, it isn’t The Blind Watchmaker – that’s still gathering dust on the coffee table downstairs – I am actually writing one. Albeit slowly. So, it was quite a shock to realise that the angle you’re required to sit up in bed in order to use a laptop effectively is almost exactly the same as the angle guaranteed to cause maximum pain after a bilateral decompression of the lower spine. The same incidentally applies to reading books and watching the portable television I nicked off my elder son. And regarding the laptop, before you write in recommending voice activated software, let me tell you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Or indeed "crocked up, Toby", as mine’s just written.

But the worst disappointment of all has been the kids. The picture I had, you see, was of my eager, friendly but suitably respectful children – a bit like the Von Trapps, but preferably not wearing the living room curtains - rushing upstairs to bring me news of their various days, offering me cups of tea amidst the humorous banter, perhaps putting together a dramatised reading or two, nothing very demanding, maybe something from Dickens or Proust, before, as dusk approaches, the whole family gathers around my bedside to sing madrigals.

Admittedly I had no evidence to support my theory that out of family adversity would spring forth harmony – and I wasn’t unaware of the considerable dangers involved. With two testosterone-engorged sons especially, the spectre of the Freudian Bull is never far away. And frankly, I wouldn’t put it past the elder one to take advantage of my current weakened state, by wresting away the supremacy of the Coleman herd with a strategically positioned pillow over my face. Especially since I nicked the portable telly from him. As it happens, neither harmony nor patricide come to pass. Far from either a new alpha male or a rekindled sense of family unity emerging, what actually reveals itself is … apathy. I am ignored. Had it not been for my wife returning from work every night, my rotting body would even now be mutating into Hoover fodder, as my indifferent children continue their scientific researches into whether Digital Television really does allow you to watch every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer in one day. Only occasionally, if ever, would they bother to ask themselves whatever happened to that balding chap upstairs they knew as Fat Man with a Wallet.

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