We arrived home from holiday at 2 o'clock this morning so not surprisingly today has been a bit fraught. Talk about coming back to reality with a bang! Simultaneously faced with a pile of dirty washing, suitcases to unpack (did we really have to take all that stuff!), Tesco man, dishwasher engineer and   home care as well as two tired children, one of whom has to decided to completely rearrange his bedroom, plus 127 emails to sift through! Blimey! Not that I am complaining though (well only a little bit!) as we had the most fantastic two weeks in France. Not going to go on about it, but the two cottages we stayed in were great and only venturing out when we wanted to meant that we could play at being normal for as long as we liked. The second cottage in particular was absolutely gorgeous and the acre garden was a haven for us and the children alike. Having done the traditional package holiday last year, I can definitely recommend the independence and solitude of the cottage break. The only trouble is that you have to come back at the end!

As a quick note, Michael coped really well with the change unpredictability of going away, aided in great part by a lot of photographic preparation and the picture board detailing what we were doing each day. We also took his rope - one of his obsessions - so if he got a bit anxious he had that to ‘play' with. A couple of little stresses but overall I was really proud of him.

Lastly, I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who kept the ball so admirably rolling whilst we were away. Something like this is quite difficult and time consuming to set up and it so rewarding and moving to come back and see that so many of you have used your precious time to contribute to Special Families. I can't tell you how much it is appreciated and how much your comments are valued, not just by us but also by everyone else who looks at the site. Thanks!