THE inevitable fall-out of losing a parent involves sorting through the contents of their home which, in our case, is the house we grew up in.

Occasionally you catch your breath, as I did coming across my mum's old student dance card recently, and occasionally you smile, and even cringe.

The thing none of us wants, yet can't let go, is the family portrait that has taken pride of place on our parents' sitting-room wall for 25 years. It's quite large with a rather grand oil paint effect. Even our old Spaniel is on it, I remember his ears being combed for the occasion.

My dad loved the portrait, but it has always made me cringe. This is because of what I'm wearing - a horrid red dress with shoulder pads, forever immortalising me looking like an extra from Dynasty - but also because it's so naff.

Don't get me wrong; I love our family photographs and have painstakingly arranged them in albums over the years, but there's something about a posed portrait that makes my toes curl.

Some family portraits are formal, neo-Victorian affairs, like our faux oil painting, and some are fun and relaxed, with grinning families sprawled on beanbags in jeans and bare feet. I don't know which is worse.

For me, there's something of the car crash about them - they make me feel uncomfortable, but I still want to look. An internet search turned up a bewildering array of awful portraits, among them an entire family balancing on the branch of a tree; a family in onesies having a pillow fight; a toddler asleep in a laundry basket; and the faces of three awkward-looking children set inside a blurred image of their father's face, which is just creepy.

It's not just family portraits that set my teeth on edge. Some people pay a small fortune to have "boudoir" photoshoots, which generally seem to involve a feather boa, a chaise lounge and lots of soft focus. Even worse is "couples boudoir". I once went into someone's living-room which was dominated by a massive canvas portrait of their parents in matching dressing-gowns, gazing at each other. I had to dig my fingernails into my palms to stop myself laughing.

With the exception of wedding photos, surely having a big framed picture of yourself in your home is a bit vain.

While I couldn't go that far, I think age, and circumstance, has softened me a little. In my kitchen is a lovely framed photo of my late mum on a beach, looking happy, carefree and, yes, barefoot. Thankfully there's no feather boa in sight.