After seeing my girl today at least one of the big knots of anxiety I carry in my heart has unravelled for a while. She drifts off a lot and can't always be brought back into focus, but when she is present she has a gentle, beaming smile and her eyes light up to see that it's me, and him (her son)! I asked if she'd like to come down at the weekend and she raised both her arms above her head and shook them in that kind of victory wave people do. I took this as a yes, although there are complications about the driving, of course, there are always complications.

We went to Uxbridge, her choice when offered town or country, and sat holding hands outside a Pret in the town centre, amongst the to-ing and fro-ing of endless people. She can swallow a little bit now - she had two teaspoons of chocolate mousse with a drop of water to wash the sugar off her teeth - but she's lost the habit of tasting and made a horrible face on the first mouthful. When I asked if she's gone off chocolate, she closed her eyes, signifying 'no' and opened her mouth for another spoonful. But that was all, she didn't want any more and I had to finish it myself. Honestly, the things I do for my kids.

Grandson doesn't really like sitting out in public, watching his grandmother feed his mother like a baby. To which my (unspoken) response is that it wasn't top of any of our wish lists, but here it is. I'm more than happy to stay away from the place he went to school when we're all together as I know how cruel kids can be, but when they're all strangers, fuck 'em. He didn't actually say anything to me about it, but I could read his discomfort and tried to model some kind of ease with the situation. I do worry about the future, when he's older, looking back on this time. We need to make some memories of interactions, not just him with his head in his phone, though he didn't do too much of that, considering.

We took ED back to the care home then collected GS's mate B, another gaming fiend, to spend a few days with us. Tomorrow I'm taking them into Brighton when I go to singing group, dropping them off at the pier for a few hours, so I'm off to bed now.

I am grateful for: ED's smiling face; an easy journey there and back; Bloke cooking dinner; the feeling I get when I walk from the building-site vibe of the landing into my beautiful bedroom; the first crop from my runner beans, delish

Sweet dreams xxx