For many mothers holding down a job which involves a lot of business travel is a logistical and emotional nightmare. All the indications are that employers are becoming more family friendly, but if you have a job that requires business travel and nights away from home what do you do?

Well if you are the Spice Girls the answer is simple - take your children with you. It appears that for their reunion world tour the pioneers of girl band pop have had to put down some careful childcare plans. Now they are a woman band it is only Sporty Spice who does not have a child to consider.

So the Spices have a travelling army of nannies and a back stage crèche when they are playing gigs. However every parent who has to arrange childcare knows that even the best laid plans can go wrong - and the Spice Girls are no different. Apparently Ginger Spice's girl Bluebell has chicken pox. The band are scarred that they might pick up the adult version shingles which could cause real problems, so Bluebell has been sent back to the UK to be looked after by relatives.

These sort of problems just highlight how hard it can be to get a childcare solution sorted. Every working parent has had last minute problems where a child can't go to nursery because they are infectious or a childminder or nanny has phoned in sick. It is great to have a back-up plan - and that is often a relative - but an understanding boss is probably the most important support you can have.