Ohna had one of those phone calls yesterday: 'Hello, it's PC Burgess here. I'm calling about your daughter...'

Apoa's OK but she had a bit of a narrow escape. As ever, I was piecing the story together bit by bit yesterday via phone calls and texts from the hospital etc. Here's how I understand the story now.

Apoa and her friend arrive in Hyde Park for a bit of roller blading. They're sitting on a bench putting on their blades when they see a rubbish truck heading down the hill towards them. A man is shouting. Then they realise he's shouting 'Stop! Stop, will you!' At the truck! Fairly near the last minute, they realise the truck is driverless and coming straight at them and try to get out of the way. Anna escapes but it runs over Apoa's foot and completely destroys the bench they were sitting on (part of which is now here at home). Apoa's foot is bruised and her leg is grazed. Her roller blade is destroyed. She was lucky to have the roller blade on as her foot would definitely have been broken otherwise. Anna, it seems, was kind of pushed out of the way by the truck. Thank goodness they managed to get far enough out of the way in time.

Apoa's joking about suing the council now. She could, of course, but we also don't want to get the handbrake-forgetting driver into more trouble than he needs to be in. I'll at least write to the council and ask what they think about it. Apart from the trauma, Apoa is down one roller blade, one fancy newly-purchased American Apparel sock, one roller blading session and I guess around a week of physical activity in the last week before school starts up again (she's due to start at her new sixth form college on Friday after GCSE results on Thursday).

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Kiloh was really looking forward to the Pigeon Detectives gig on Saturday and had paid 25 of her pounds for the ticket. She was ill on Friday so stayed in bed most of Saturday and cancelled her cinema outing in the afternoon. She was perky on her way to the gig but then felt worse again. After the support band she was so ill she had to go home. She walked the whole way (around 45 minutes' walk) as busses kept not coming, pausing to puke every now and then and putting her head down and walking on when accosted near the park. She borrowed a phone to tell me she was leaving the gig and called when she got home to let me know she was safely back and off to bed. She's off school today. I hope she gets to see them soon and doesn't have the beginnings of a 'jinx band' as seemed to be happening with Daniel and the Kings of Leon for a while.

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Wow. We thought the first two episodes of Lost in Austen were good but it took a really big leap up last night. There's lots to like in it, including an amazing cast and amazingly good casting, but the script is really excellent. We can't wait for the final episode next week. I was amused to look on imdb and find that two episodes were written by Guy Andrews and two by a woman called Jane Austen who was born in Steventon, Hampshire in 1775. She seems to have done quite a bit of tv work ...

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We finally managed to persuade Kiloh to get on her bike for the first time in ages yesterday. We caught the train and then had a lovely cycle to a really lovely party at Sylvia's. We were just arriving at the station for the train back when she did a sudden stop, flew over the handlebars, and broke her wrist. B-(

Hope we can get her back in the saddle soon,

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Went to see Happy-Go-Lucky last night, which was great fun. The kids particularly enjoyed the important supporting role played by our house as Poppy and Scott toured the neighbourhood during her driving lessons. Holly's car also did a bit of upstaging.

I also enjoyed for once being in a cinema that fell into complete silence as the film began. And the hearty laugh of the guy in the front row. he made me think of that line in Woody Allen's philosophy:

'What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?'

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We've been taking in a lot of culture recently, since I went through a phase of grabbing those cheap or 10 squid special offers, but Apoa and I think this might be the most exciting cultural event we've come across recently.

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With our usual tardiness, we finally took Kiloh to the optician's on Saturday and confirmed her need for specs. It's not a strong prescription. It was explained to her on a different system from the one I understand, but 'a wee bittie' is probably as accurate as I need. Apparently, she only needs to wear them in class and when she thinks she needs them. Naturally, my genes are the culprit.

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