Day 3 - Friday

God I feel so useless.

The only useful thing I can do is look after the children so thoroughly, so perfectly, that you know that you don't have to worry for a second about us. Save your worry for the real stuff. We are absolutely fine here. Pearl and Louis are happy.

Today we went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary - another great place for toddlers. I love our yearly memberships.

We bumped into Maggie, the lovely woman we met in the park last week. We had coffee together with some other mother-friends of hers, and our children all ran amok in a tribe together, amazed at dingoes and kookaburras and curlews and of course koalas. A couple of the mothers had seen us on the news last week.

We had lunch with Nonie and saw Hugo's guinea pigs. Hugo was at school but the guinea pigs were a huge hit.

Pearl insisted on wearing her pink fairy dress all day. I'm going to need to make a sign that says 'She chooses her own clothes'.

Penny and Dinah dropped in after work. It was perfect timing, just as the kids were getting ratty. Dinah read stories and Pearl and Louis showed off, playing hide and seek. They talked about Penny and Dinah for some time after they left.

Pearl woke up just before dawn this morning, and said to me, 'Hello, Mummy L!' with such a tone of delight that my heart broke for her. I said, 'Go back to sleep, darling, Mummy's in India.' I expected her to burst into tears but she must only have been half-awake, because she did just lie down and go back to sleep. She woke up two hours later, properly, crying out for you. We walked around the house looking for you, while I explained that you were in India but that you would be back soon. Not today, but soon. She was okay with that.

I've really been surprised at how they have taken your absence in their stride. I think it is a sign of what lovely secure children we are raising. They miss you, they ask about you, but when I answer that you are in India and you are coming back, they are satisfied. Louis is particularly interested in the fact that you went on a plane. He was explaining this to our neighbour C, who dropped by this evening to see if I needed anything - 'Milk? Bread?'.

I know you can't read this now. But I hope you both can feel all the love from all of us.