Errkkk, what a disastrous weekend. Jessica's slide into teenager-dom continues. She is becoming extremely difficult to live with. To cut to the end of the story, Deb and I agreed that Alex hasn't changed (except that he's bigger and faster than he used to be), and that we are no better or worse at handling things than we were. What has changed is Jessica - and specifically her ability to cope with Alex.

I think I've blanked out most of the rows and other such. The culmination however was losing Alex in Chester Zoo. This was the most dramatic one since IKEA a short while ago. He was about 5 metres in front of me when I turned back to see where Deb and Jessica were. When I turned back he'd gone. We were on our way out of the zoo at the time, and the reason we'd gone there was because we reckoned we had a reasonable chance of guessing where he'd go if he did disappear. The theory worked, but only just. After checking the shop and toilets, we did our usual routine in these circumstances. Deb grabbed a member of staff while I continued to search, checking the car park and car. We didn't think he'd go back into the zoo. By this time, Deb had mobilised the staff who were searching around.

Deb finally thought that the next most likely place for him to go was a land rover set up for the kids to play on by the Rhinos. A security guard was dispatched, and there he was playing as happy as anything.

It hit us both pretty hard, particularly coming so soon after the incident in IKEA. He's just to big and fast now. He was literally gone in the blink of an eye, and found a quarter of mile away on the other side of the zoo.

School finishes soon for half term, so I've taken some time off and we're hoping to recuperate a little. Let's see how we go.