Later. 6.45pm.

Course, it was always going to be a great day. The last day in the office before the holiday always is. 

It's not a good start to wake up in tears at 6am, but I seem to have reconciled myself to my place in the overall cosmic scheme, and so after a few hours of crying I was as ready as I'll ever be to face the world. I don't know why I ever expected anything different. Like I say, I'm a slow learner.

So much to do, and yet almost immobile under the crushing burden of pressure. He had conveniently forgotten his offer to pick the children up from Birmingham, so I had to fit all that in as well, at the last minute.  Then I had to work out how to entertain them back at the office.

"Mummy, what do you do when a boy asks you something on line and you don't want to answer?"  Ooh. Has it begun already, at eleven? Deep concern beneath my air of casual enquiry. "That depends on the question". Bated breath. "It's something I don't want to talk about with a boy". Okaaaaay. What does he want you to do? "He wants me to tell him what speciality I would have if there was a zombie apocalypse".  Excellent question. "I don't want to get into a conversation about zombies, I might get spooked out".  Silent sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about in my hellish day.

I decided to take my job as seriously as it deserves, so I gave them roles for the afternoon. One to do the switchboard, one to photocopy her head.  It worked well.  No one noticed. Then I palmed one off on a mate who owed me a favour, and the other one is helping the cleaner just at the moment.

Meanwhile I am trying to do about two weeks' work in the next couple of hours.  However I have drunk so much coffee I have had to spend 50% of the day on the toilet and I am jangling and hysterical. 

At one point in France, I felt so dreadful that I lay awake on the hard narrow bed of the spare room, and thought of all the different ways I could kill myself.  Like counting sheep, but grimmer: an intellectual exercise to distract me from the practical possibilities. I am not going to do that in Greece.

I am going to reorganise my inner landscape, and change my priorities. I'm finally at the tipping point, nearly so nearly sank last night, the coup de grace. But I've decided to swim.