Quite a heavy day - I attended training day on neuro linguistic programming.

It's something I am quite interested in but it felt a little too heavy for the here and now of life as I'm living it.

I had to go to a public meeting later where our team was to give a presentation. Tom was running late so I had to call on my lovely and very obliging neighbour Helen. I've not had to do it before and felt a little ashamed at running off and leaving my children like that.

Everything went wrong. I ran to meet the minibus, then none of the young people who was due to give presentations arrived.

The bus was almost out of diesel so I had to collect my car and follow it back to Lancing making me even later.

I just scraped in but lost all sense of purpose of my being there. I thought of a jigsaw and wondered, am I the missing piece or do I just not fit any more? My life has changed so much and it must be hard for people not to view me differently.

On Friday, Lewis and I had a lovely conversation in the car on the way to school. I said I thought he was very calm and laid back and he said that will make him a good Dad and he's going to have two children and he will always be kind to them.

I believe him and only wish I could be around to see it for myself. I like the idea of being an active grandmother.

I have been missing Lesley - I guess good friends are like therapists. I always shared everything with Lesley and saw her every morning when we dropped our children at school so it's left quite a gap in my life.

Following a lovely late afternoon and evening I was delighted to be joined by one of my foster daughters, her partner and their beautiful baby Ashantini.

They made me very happy as they call me Grandma, which I know is as close as I will ever get.

I fed and changed Ashantini too. I couldn't stop looking at her and appreciating the miracle of life. It is a wonderful thing and should be cherished.

When we got home I went to put our baby tortoise Henry back in his vivarium. I had put him in his outside run to enjoy the weather but he was gone.

I was distraught and Tom, having been out with a friend, rushed back to help Jacob, Lewis and I in the hunt. It seemed impossible he could have escaped - there were no gaps or openings in his enclosure and it even has a wire mesh roof.

I emptied all the bedding in his pen, we rummaged in bushes, moved furniture and overturned pots. Approximately 50 minutes later, when I couldn't believe my bad luck, I found him.

He has a shallow low-level herb garden in his enclosure and had buried himself completely. I had looked through it, I thought, thoroughly, early in our hunt but he was well hidden.

Luckily everyone saw the funny side. I'm thinking of renaming him Houdini. After a chaotic weekend of all our plans going wrong Tom managed to fall off his bike in Henfield on Sunday on our way home. I drove him over to casualty at, yes you guessed it, Worthing Hospital. I really do think I should have shares in the place.

No broken bones but he has lots of bruising and has damaged a vertebrae. His shoulder is very swollen and he is in a lot of pain. It will make a nice difference for me to be doing the caring.

We had a long wait so I called in to see Lesley. It was so good to see her. It's so hard to make sense of this crazy life sometimes but I know I would still like to think I could be a part of it all.

I have been checking all mine and the children's various dates for school, life and social events and cannot imagine no longer existing or being a part of it all, yet I know all life will still go on and I hope it will be just as happy.

After all without laughter, what are we?

On Monday work was good and I was glad I went in. We have a good staff team who work well together.

After school the boys played out and Tom supervised so I unwound with a walk. My feet hurt so much. I took advantage of the tide being out and power-walked on the beach in the sand with the sea cooling my feet.

The sun shone on the water and it was totally beautiful and felt fabulous.

I love the summer - everyone seems so much happier and more relaxed. I am always trying to introduce new things into the boys' diet and tried to get Lewis to try fresh apricot. It made me laugh when he said: "Yuk, I'm not eating that - it's a hairy fruit".

On Tuesday I helped at Jacob's school with their cycling proficiency test and saw my healer Margaret. It seems like a long time ago that I took my cycling proficiency test but, would you believe, I still have my certificate and it's in my life story in the boys' memory books.

My line manager telephoned while I was with the children. He wasn't too happy as he had arrived at my office expecting a supervision session with me. I could understand him being annoyed but it was a genuine mistake.

Apparently while I was off sick a directive has come out that all appointments were to be made electronically and diaries accessible to all.

I don't have an issue personally about sharing information however I am slow where computers are concerned and am fairly alien to that way of working.

I helped again with the cycling proficiency tests on Wednesday.

It was lovely because all the children asked if I could be with their group. To make my morning even more special as I was walking back to my car, Lewis's class were walking back to school following a visit to the middle school's IT suite where they had been printing off poems.

They called out to me and clustered around. Lewis looked especially chuffed to see me but I knew better than to cuddle him in front of all his friends because that just wouldn't be cool.

I let him clamber all over my back and show off to his friends instead. I could feel his love.