My children are now old enough to get themselves back from school. (And for those worriers among you, the village school is only 500 metres away and there aren’t any roads to cross.) This is great because I can stay centrally-heated while I watch them down the road, but terrible because I have no control over what comes home and what doesn’t.

One day this week The Youngest came home with just one shoe. Hopping, I sent him back to find it.

Equally disconcerting, one of my own pairs of boots keeps going out without me, on the feet of The Daughter. Fortunately I keep a plentiful supply.

This time of year is the height of boot season, and my boots indeed add height whether they’re black or brown, distance-worthy or wearable only for brief moments of glamour should I be called up for a girl power pop band.

All year round, while I grimace through the blisters, I hang on to the knowledge that I’m doing my bit for Operation Christmas Child.

This is not a festive push on paediatric waiting lists, but a countrywide mission to deliver more than a million gift-wrapped goody-filled shoeboxes to children internationally who might otherwise receive nothing.

It’s also a secret winter tax on the footwear-fetishist: my own penchant, combined with a family’s worth of trainers, football boots, sandals and school shoes, means I’m horrified each November when we count up the accumulated boxes for filling.

And so The Children and I have spent the week brandishing scissors in a red and green wrapping frenzy, all fingers, thumbs and Sellotape-induced hysteria, a fortnight’s pocket money contributing to the shipping costs of these little parcels from Oxfordshire. And all joking aside, it will warm my heart on Christmas morning to know that somewhere round the world, our handfuls of coloured pencils, toys and warm hats have brought far-flung children a magic moment.