There is a flurry of excitement in our house because two horoscopes in two different newspapers inform me that something big and good is going to happen to me.

I’m not generally one for astrology, mind. I know my own star-sign – Capricorn – but I wouldn’t particularly know what that means other than I was born at a certain time of the year.

Eavesdropping on a conversation in the office, I hear people throwing back and forth their astrological signs and am amazed that merely by someone mentioning their birthday, others – and my wife is among this number – can not only instantly identify their star-sign, but can give a brief summation of their character as dictated by the position of huge balls of burning gas millions of light years away.

That isn’t to say I don’t read my horoscopes, but I tend only to take much notice if it says that something good is in the offing. Not that the stargazers often give you direct bad news – “don’t start that long book, you will be dead by Friday” – but they do tend to talk in enigmatic riddles: “Ask yourself why the gazelle sometimes beds down in the lions den, and consider whether you yourself will be comfortable lying in this bed you are making for yourself.”

There are some aspects of astrology I like, chiefly the concept that anything I do might not necessarily be down to me, but merely the capricious whim of powers beyond my ken, but funnily enough although my wife is a big fan of astrology, one thing that doesn’t seem to carry much weight is me saying, “But it’s not my fault”.

On the whole, though, I like to believe that I am master of my own destiny and that everything ahead of us is a great unknown not unlike the static-y picture on the telly when the aerial falls out.

A few days after the excitement over the horoscopes – and the big, exciting thing abjectly failing to materialise – we are playing I Spy in the car.

We go through the usual I Spies that can be seen from the car: R for road, H for house, T for trees. Then Charlie says: “I Spy with my little eye, something beginning with F.”

We look around. There is nothing beginning with F. We make F noises while we think: “Ffffffffffff” and “F-F-F-F-F”.

“Is it flower?” I ask, even though I can see no flowers. Sometimes one of the kids spots an I Spy and we’re still guessing it several miles after it’s disappeared from view.

“No,” says Charlie. I ask him if it’s inside the car or outside the car.

“It’s right in front of you.”

Eventually, I have to give up. I can see nothing in front of me beginning with F.

“It’s the future,” he says with triumph.