TGIF

Thank God it's the weekend is all I can say. This has been the most excrutiating of weeks - total sleep deprivation from the princess being ill, then daddy being ill, and mummy being left to be on call for both. I have been wondering if perhaps I could give Florence Nightingale a run for her money, sweeping around beds of fevered, screaming patients, competently attending and soothing them.

I am now practically hallucinating from a combination of lack of sleep and the fact that I've eaten so many jelly beans this afternoon to try and get through the huge quantities of very dull work I've been doing today.

And tonight Princess O is in her very first ballet performance of "Cygnet Lake" with her fellow baby swans in Nursery and Reception - can't wait to go and coo over them all in their sweet little swan outfits. Shame Daddy didn't fish the letter giving permission to do an evening performance out of his pocket until 8.30 this morning when he told me insouciantly that O had performing arts week next week at school! Argh! The permission slip should have been delivered back 2 days ago!

The tyrany of the school letter is omnipresent in our house already, and she's only just turned 4. In fact every time I seen one of those jauntily coloured missives telling me that "my child" needs to bring this, that and everything into school, or needs permission for something, or that so and so has been transgressing school rules, my heart sinks.

Of course the most important ones are the ones that never even reach home at all, lost in the wilderness of childminder's houses, school bags and men's pockets. And that is why on all but one non-uniform days, Princess O has turned up in full uniform, but on the last day of half term, we were smugly prepared for going back to school, only to find out from one of the other (lovely) mum's that there was still another day of holiday, for which we had no childcare.

Now, I really must go, a swift very cold glass of wine awaits in the pub on the way to the tube, in preparation for the gala performance of Cygnet Lake.

p.s. I've swapped the High Art of Virginia Woolf for Notting Hell, which is quite smug, but rather fun so far. I'll report more later.