Jayne is away this week, taking a group of 10 year-olds to the Isle of Wight for a week. On Monday I got my normal train home, then walked to her school to pick the car up – a good 20 minute walk. When I got home there was not really time enough to relax as I had to get the girl down to army cadets. And then she had to be picked up a couple of hours later, and I stopped off at the supermarket on the way back from that to get bread. I have a whole list of who has to be where on which day. Jayne must spend half her time ferrying children from one place to another, and fit that in with dropping me off at the station and picking me up in the evenings. I bet she is secretly relieved that I don’t have council meetings three or four nights a week any more!

Of course it was all different when I was a kid. For a start I was at boarding school so although I did all sort of activities, they were all on-site. And my mother didn’t get a car until several years after I had left home, so she would not have been able to ferry me about.

When I did finally get to bed I just could not sleep, and this morning I got up as normal feeling rough as anything, called in sick, and as soon as all the kids were off to school I slept for about 5 hours, then got up and went to the dentist. That was not good. It was another marathon session of drilling in preparation for more caps. I was a bit worried that I had not eaten all day and my blood sugar level must be very low, which is not recommended when facing that sort of treatment. At my old dentist in London I once had an evening appointment, had not eaten all day and felt a bit weak because of it. After the session I walked out of his room and lost consciousness at the top of the stairs and came to on the landing with some very worried dentists surrounding me. As I lay in the chair with my jaw aching from being open for a solid hour I couldn’t help thinking about that.

News from the Isle of Wight is that there is a large group of kids from a london school who are terrorising the camp, being caught smoking, fighting and stealing. Their teachers seem to be treating the week as a holiday and leaving the girls to their own devices. I don’t think I would fancy being on one of these trips. Our MP was telling us the other day that she went on one of them, as a parent (her boys went to same school J works at), and her husband also did one – and the experience left him quite traumatised. Apparently you only have to mention the Isle of Wight, even now, and he goes pale. From what Jayne has told me about it all I can believe it.

I don’t think I will be in work tomorrow – having time off while J is away might be convenient, but I do still feel quite rough too.