I’M home alone for a week, my husband having gone to warmer climes (Portsmouth) – and I’m loving it.

For, with the exception of having to take the bins out (he has abandoned me on a full collection week – and dragging two weeks’ worth of newspapers and wine bottles across gravel is no mean feat, I can tell you), it’s been a long overdue and, frankly, very enjoyable separation.

Loo seats have remained down; clothes have found their way into the laundry basket, instead of being hurled vaguely in its direction; the bed barely needs making in a morning, instead of looking as though a herd of insomniac hippos has been occupying it; and the kitchen doesn’t give visitors the impression that the cast of The Young Ones have taken up residence.

But best of all has been that his absence has left me in full, wanton, luxurious possession of the remote control.

I laughed hollowly yesterday when I picked up my (still pristine and properly folded) morning newspaper, got back into my (still pristine) bed and read the following snippet: women, according to ITV chief Kevin Lygo, are generally in charge of households’ remote controls and thus dictate what is watched on television.

Somewhat unnecessarily adding that this principle is reversed when it comes to sport, Mr Lygo has pledged to focus on more “happy, life-affirming” television shows, rather than the gritty and brutal stuff men prefer to watch when in control of the remote.

Now, gritty and brutal I don’t mind (up to a point – while I love series such as Scott and Bailey or Happy Valley, bleak Scandinavian noir of the Wallander genre does absolutely nothing for me); but it’s the lads’ stuff on television that I can’t stand.

You know – all that megastructures, air crash reconstruction, bearded volcanologists analysing the eruption of Krakatoa, primitive tribes hunting orangutans with poisoned darts, and “the Second World War from the air” guff which litters the television listings. All of which tends to have my husband enthralled.

No, I’m firmly with Mr Lygo, who has pledged more “sweet, happy, perfectly-formed shows” for his viewers.

While the cat has been away, the mouse (that’s me) has had a televisual field day.

Jon Snow and Krishnan Guru-Murthy (who I find spectacularly irritating) haven’t had a look in: it’s been a relentless viewing diet of sweet sitcoms and nostalgic drama.

I’m two and a half series into a Downton Abbey binge-watch, interspersed with the first series of Cold Feet, with a healthy sprinkling of Dinnerladies and To the Manor Born (how I want to be Audrey fforbes-Hamilton living in Grantleigh Manor Lodge).

My only brush with the world of politics this past week has been watching the repeats on BBC Two of the sublime Yes, Minister.

The Discovery Channel is toast. Fire lit, curtains drawn, dogs snoring, leftover Chinese takeaway curry on a tray while lolling on the sofa watching Penelope Keith giving “Richard de Vere” the runaround circa 1980. Utter bliss. Come tomorrow, sadly, normal service will be resumed.

Which in my case means socks strewn across the bedroom floor, ravaged newspapers and interminable programmes about the building of Dubai airport. And the rugby season’s about to get into full swing.

Women may rule the remote in the world of ITV’s Kevin Lygo – but they don’t in one particular northern household, that’s for sure.