The second thing is that something extraordinary happened yesterday. I know you’ll be interested – you lot are, in essence, just nosy parkers. Now that the weather seems to have picked up a bit – there are apple trees at the back of the garden, by the way, and the blossom has come out; they are truly lovely – I spend as much time as I can outside. Oh! And our leaf is still clinging on! I check on it daily; can you believe such perseverance? Anyway, I was humouring Mental Sita on the lawn – she wanted to play doggies (actually she wanted to play dogging but I drew the line, although God knows I miss the human touch) – when the Squeak told me I had visitors. Plural: visitors. I beckoned to her grandly that she may bring ‘said visitors’ to the garden – I’ve become even more dismissive of her now that I know what a genuine scumbag she is. I was expecting it to be Karl and my father (who, incidentally, told me last visit that an exceptionally kind psychiatrist had visited him but he couldn’t remember anything about her – was that you?). Wrong again. Guess who?

Yes, Dr. R, my children came to see me! Josh and Annie were standing there by the back door staring at me with a social worker hovering nearby. I felt this extraordinary love rise up within me; the umbilical cord of motherhood is never really cut. I know that you know that. My eyes filled with tears. They looked so much bigger than I remembered and a little apprehensive, which was not surprising.

It was not the impression I would have ideally wanted to give – I had Mental Sita on the leash, she was cocking her leg against the litter bin, and I was so surprised to see them standing there that I let go and she bounded across the lawn towards them. Mental Sita can be disquieting at the best of times but now she was literally barking.

‘Tell her to get down!’ I cried. ‘She’s pretending to be a dog!’

The children just stared at her and then back at me. (I don’t look so freaky any more; my hair has grown back thick and strong. I’ve got a slight tan from the recent sunshine. I look OK. But the fact of the matter was I had a huge Indian woman on all fours on a leash.)

Annie, as ever, was game. ‘Down! Bad dog!’ she said, and Mental Sita obediently sat on her haunches and panted, ready to play. I caught up with her, picked up the leash and tied Mental Sita to a tree.

In a way, it was quite a good ice-breaker. ‘Hello, guys,’ I said. And we stood there for a moment staring at each other. I held out my arms.