With school holidays in full swing there are a couple of familiar topics dominating many a parental conversation at the moment.
The weather is of course one.
We all somehow knew that the moment the kids were off the crystal clear blue skies of late June and early July would somehow find a way of transforming into a brooding cloudy mass of dampness - and so it transpired.
Then there's the cost of navigating through summer childcare for the millions of households we give or take a fortnight or so off still have to have either the sole or both parents out working.
With a recent report showing that the average cost of holiday childcare has increased by 7.8% in the last 12 months across the UK its little wonder that a week of holiday childcare for one child now comes in at £123.49.
That's if you can find someone to provide it of course - the same research found that 87% of local authorities in England admitted that they do not have adequate provision to meet the demand from parents.
While this childcare crisis continues unabated the road to truly flexible working practices being accepted and widely available to hard pressed parents continues to be a very rocky one with many an up and down along the way.
As we saw recently British Army top brasser General Sir Nicholas Carter gave the movement a boost by announcing that soldiers will be given the opportunity to job share, work part-time or choose flexible hours in a bid to double the number of female troops.
Currently, female soldiers make up 8.9 per cent of the 82,000-strong Army and General Carter would like to see that figure raised to 15 per cent in five years time.
Hot on the heals of that groundbreaking development though came a legal ruling which knocked things two steps back, with two MPs who were barred from standing together as Green Party candidates in the May election losing their legal challenge to the decision.
Sarah Cope, the main carer for two young children and Clare Phipps, who has a disability known as idiopathic hypersomnia, said they could represent the Basingstoke constituency better if they combined their Green Party candidacy but were barred from doing so ahead of last May's election.
The two women appealed against the decision only for a High Court to rule against them saying that barring their job share proposal was "unarguably correct" as the law currently stood.
Which begs the question if there will ever be enough people in parliament in dire need of flexible working to be able to change the law?