And so reader, I was perplexed!

Day ten of the summer holidays and I think I'm living in a parallel universe. Here, children are happy, hospitals are for other people and when you see water dripping through the ceiling, it really is your imagination!  Yes - the kids are being great!  It is like living in the last thirty minutes of Mary Poppins!

Lucie especially is flourishing. She is chatty, content and looks so healthy. She stood on the 'white square' this morning and is nicely continuing to lose weight too. We are also doing some educational stuff with her and have been amazed with the results - just ten days in and she can tell the time (okay - little hand only) and her handwriting has improved dramatically. Thank you Mary Poppins!

Emilie, meanwhile, is default setting Emilie; a bouncing (very bouncing!) ball of giggles and smiles. Bright eyed (she knows not of the demon Cotes Du Rhone) and wild haired, she visits us for food periodically and then disappears. Rather like the hedgehogs which are coming to our garden us each evening - except without the snuffling and worm eating.

So if, as Jane Eyre observed; life is indeed a lesson (actually I made that up, but its the sort of thing goody-two-shoes Jane would say), what are Helen and I to conclude?

For a while we've had a nagging doubt that the 'real Lucie' hides underneath her anxiety about school. Not that she hates it when she is there, but like a lot of autistic people, she struggles with the transition; the moving from the sphere of home to school. In addition, whist her teachers are wonderful, I think there is an element of Lucie steeling herself to get through the day. Like a soldier on the front line - she copes whilst there, but can fall apart after (and before she is sent back). The sobbing and (literal) trembling we see some mornings are very real and we have wondered what toll this takes on her physical health. This last year, she seems to have lurched from one illness to another.

 Of course taking her out of school would be a huge step to take. We are also aware that she needs social stimuli and a life which challenges her and prepares her for a time when we are no longer here (soon, the way I feel - got terminal man-flu!). But her life also should be about being as happy as she can be. So....

Anyway - we will continue to monitor, but in the meantime, we are enjoying this rather lovely universe of happy playing hedgehogs and snuffling children.....or is it the other way round. This flu weighs heavily on my fevered intellect!

Thanks for reading,


Mark.