WHEN it comes to ill health it’s definitely a case of nurture over nature in our family. The Mother comes into her own if anyone is even vaguely under the weather and is known among her friends as the one to call on for company and lifts to hospital and any doctor’s appointments.

Her knowledge of prescription drugs is almost encyclopaedic and my sister and I often say - I think- in jest that it would be far easier for her GP to present her with a prescription pad and let her diagnose herself than try to compete.

“I’d have been a nurse if I hadn’t hated the sight of blood or people being sick,” she often says when we comment on her love for any TV programme with a medical title.

The upside of this for us as children was that the slightest ailment saw us treated to the full Florence Nightingale routine with constant attention, chicken soup and Lucozade on tap and ten minute condition checks to make sure we were not too warm, too cold or too anything else the ailment could bring.

So it’s probably no surprise that despite being allergic to anything medical I do tend to be slightly over zealous when it comes to health…or as the housemate more succinctly puts it, I’m a nag.

“You don’t have to ring every morning just to check I’m still alive,” said The Mother as she picked up the phone.

“You had your flu jab and your covid jab yesterday so I’m just checking you’re ok. Some people can have a reaction…although I should have known you wouldn’t,” I added.

“It was easier when we were on holiday together I could just stop outside your bedroom door and if I could hear you snoring I knew you’d made it through the night,” I explained later.

“One morning I didn’t realise you were already downstairs and I almost called an ambulance!”

“This is why it would be a good idea for us to buy a chateau and move to France,” chipped in my sister still on her quest to get us all to quit these shores and become French truffle hunters…or whatever rural pursuit she’s currently set her heart on.

“If we were all in the same place we could keep an eye on The Mother.”

“The Mother doesn’t need any eyes kept on her thank you…and I can think of nothing worse than having you two tracking my every move more than you already do!”

Over the years the housemate has become immune to my constant health check-ins and trots out the “I’m fine,” response almost before I have time to ask the question.

Sitting watching TV the other night this backfired. “I’m fine thank you very much...for the hundredth time today,” she snapped in my direction.

“That’s good to know,” I replied. “But it was the lady on Eastenders who was asking her husband if he was alright not me asking you!”