Sue Pycroft

No more canvassing my opinion. No more “so, would you go for red, or blue, or yellow”? No more talk of tactics or safe seats.

No, tomorrow my mum flies off for her annual holiday in the Canary Isles, and will have to live with her choice of floral dresses and sandals and where best to sit in the aeroplane for an entire fortnight.

I will be unable to counsel her after that.

“Vera and I have decided to take our own beach towels this time,” she tells me when she rings ten minutes later.

“The hotel does supply them, of course, but only after breakfast.

“What we’re going to do is pop our own towels on the sunbeds as soon as we get up, so that we’re sure of beds in the front row. Other people do that, you know…” and there’s a long silence, in which we both know she is bitterly regretting the decision to rush into the Common Market before we’d finally established the ground rules with Germany for the placing of towels on sunbeds in overseas hotels.

It’s very tricky when you’re 100 miles apart from someone to give useful fashion advice on whether they should wear those flat, navy sandals or the wedge-heeled cream ones when you’ve never set eyes on either pair and have no idea whether the destination hotel is a chic boutique or a huge informal family resort.

However, this is the accepted role of the middle aged woman in our family.

Too old to be trendy yourself, too young to get away with wearing purple and behaving disgracefully, you are instead required to dole out gentle words to your various loved ones on the wisdom or otherwise of putting a scarlet cardi with a fuchsia blouse, or whether the yellow tie goes with the khaki shirt and blue socks.

And you have to do it tactfully. No suggesting that your nearest and dearest bin the lot and start again.

No calling into question their eyesight or their sense of propriety or their sanity. No asking whether you look like a buyer from M&S head office or the fashion editor of Vogue.

This, like picking up dead underpants and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of milk and bread and tea bags to the kitchen, is just what we women of a certain age do.

With the male members of our clan, it’s not too difficult.

They reach into the wardrobe, pull out several pairs of jeans or a couple of jackets, look mildly puzzled as if no one could have predicted that there would be items of clothing behind those mirrored doors, and then ask the time-old question – brown belt or black.

Take it from me, you don’t even have to turn your head and focus.

The knack is in sounding authoritative.

Black, you say firmly, as if wearing a brown belt with that suit could result in a diplomatic incident.

Which jeans? is equally easily answered. The ones in your right hand, you sigh, as if it’s so blindingly obvious even a man could work it out.

My new shoes or old? New, you reply, then catch the look of pain that comes from anticipating ten hours of pinched toes and blisters, and correct yourself.

Sorry, I meant old, you say. Come on, concentrate.

The phone rings once more.

“We couldn’t fit the towels in,” says my mum, who can guess the weight of a suitcase down to the nearest ounce.

“You see, I've decided to take all my dresses and sandals instead.”

I take a sip of cold tea. It tastes bitter. Next thing I know, my husband will be getting dressed on his own.

This weekend, whatever this country’s political colour, I’m going to treat myself to something purple.