Ach, it was hot today, ten degrees hotter than it has been for over a month, and humid, which does none of us any favours. My fingers and toes swell up like sausages and I become even vaguer, YD gets cross and snippy and ED just fades away. We went to Marlow, by the river, as I suddenly remembered we'd only been there in the bitter cold, but it's even worse in the heat, full of rich cunts and their big boats, dog shit all over the grass where we might have sat, no squeezing any fun out of it, just exhaustion. we didn't stay that long.

Back at the home, there was a cake from the kitchen, and lots of staff gathered in her room to sing happy birthday, both traditional and Stevie Wonder versions, which elicited a flicker of faint upwards motion round the edges of ED's mouth. I couldn't call it a smile, but she knew something was happening, and the fact that I was so pleased with such a tiny thing scares the hell out of me when I think about it, because we can see where we're going, but I won't think about that, we'll get there soon enough. Today she knew there were a lot of people there just for her, because they wanted to be there, and that's better than nothing.

It was only when I saw this picture that I realised I hadn't brushed my hair and I'd declared this dress ready for washing days ago, but if anybody cared they kept it to themselves, and you can't ask for more than that, can you?



And then we came home to the plane crash at the air show, three miles down the road, seven people killed when a plane crashed into a row of cars sat at traffic lights next to the airport. Bloke was there, it happened right in front of him, all bar the actual impact - the sudden weird noise in the engine, the thought that it was surely too low, disappearing behind trees, a boom, a fireball, plumes of black smoke. Man. I drive down that road all the time - the one I couldn't get on last week because the tunnel was closed, I spend half my life crawling towards those traffic lights on late afternoons. We drove through there this morning. If the traffic had been moving it would have been fucking carnage - that's a busy fast stretch, with three lanes of traffic each way. Man. No names yet, and I know all my family are OK, because we've all checked in, and the chances are they weren't local as that's a big road right along the coast, but they're someone's friends, someone's family.

So I've smoked not one but two big fat spliffs since I got home and now I'm going to watch Pride, a British film based on the true story of the support given by the LGBT community to the miners and their families during the 1980s strike. Said to be fab.

I am grateful for: being alive, sat here bashing away at this keyboard; for being embedded in my family, fuckers though they all are; for the cat being asleep and not moaning; for Bloke cooking me a favourite, soothing dinner without being 'heroic' about it, despite having had a gruesome day himself; for walking 6113 steps without having to Go For a Walk.

Sweet dreams xxx