Thursday, I jumped into my car early having desperately tried to get out of the house without waking everybody else up. As per normal, I did fail miserably but the intention was there. As I had discussed in my last post, I really wasn't looking forward to being away for the whole day; Hayley's mood was not in good shape, and if the kids were as demanding as they normally are, I would be in for a hard time on my return.

In fact this fear was compounded when I received a call at 8.15am from Hayley, fretting where I had put the thermometer (Camille's temperature is very important after a dose of Chemotherapy). I was pretty sure that the thermometer was on the sofa where we had last taken her temperature, and as I protested my ignorance, Hayley exploded down the phone and the line went dead.

I did manage to get back in touch with her a few minutes later, where I found her in a reasonable state. This is one of the most confusing things about Hayley's down turn is the roller coaster of emotions she expresses.

My meeting was actually bearable and since then, I have found that I have been able to focus a little more on work; I have got quite a bit to do and a lot to get my teeth into so in theory it should be easy. Getting back out there may well have been exactly what I needed.

In fact since that day and since the early morning explosion from Hayley, her moods have been one hundred times better. I don't ever remember Hayley having been as low as that, so I'm hoping that it was a blip and that she can pick herself up and focus back on the treatment cycle in a step by step manner.

It's Lucia's birthday this week, and she has spent the last month or so watching the television adverts very closely, hollering "I want that" every time a doll or jewellery/make-up/Hannah Montana article appeared on our screens. We decided that we may be more successful with her presents, and especially the longevity of them, if Lucia had the run of Toys R Us with a strict budget. As an accountant you would have thought that my power to quickly calculate a sum of numbers would be a strength; well, Lucia in full whirlwind may have been a task too far. Boxes of "stuff" were flying in the trolley quicker than the blink of the eye, swiftly followed by Hayley whipping back out the non-acceptable toys for a four year old. As we ventured to the checkout, and I stacked the boxes ready for the girl to zap them through I realised that our budget had been some what exceeded. It turned out to be a 60% increase to our initial budget, my parents would have never allowed it.

The weekend has bee pretty busy with visitors (and toy shopping) and we've finally got the girls to bed after visiting our friends Sally and Simon's for a nice Duck a la Thompson. Simon is one of the twelve (yes, it was eleven, but we've added Action Jackson) Three Peak climbers for the 30th October. Simon had taken the training seriously this weekend and walked seventeen miles earlier that morning. He looked pretty good for it, but he did reveal that the training would be missing something pretty vital, and that was hills. Living in East Anglia can have it's benefits, but if you are training to climb the highest mountains in the UK, East Anglia is as useful as me under a car bonnet.

I too have ventured out to start my training. I have taken a slightly different approach and decided that if I can run a half marathon distance by the time we take on the challenge, I'll be read to go. Things were looking good as I blasted (or waddled) six miles in 49 minutes.I will need to do some walking as well, I have new boots that need breaking in; in fact they may need throwing in because they have steel toecaps, which will apparently destroy my toes on the descent from the Three Peaks. Thank you Mr Ebay !!

More Chemotherapy coming up this week; so as soon as she's up we knock her down again. It really doesn't seem fair. This is the last dose prior to the first scan; I don't think we are focused on the Chemotherapy at all with that looming over our heads.