The girls and I snuggled up on the sofa this evening after dinner and watched Ice Princess. It was good to have some cuddly girl time, even if Bobby and Stephen kept making vomiting noises from the study area during all the predictable emotional bits.

Times like this, I find it particularly hard to understand how parents can send their children to boarding school. I would find not being able to hug my children absolutely unbearable.

Of course, sadly, not all of the pupils have particularly wonderful parents anyway. I was feeling particularly sorry for one boy today because he always looks so neglected - horribly lank dirty hair, blazer too small, shirt grubby, never with a working pen - and thinking that if only his mum knew how bedraggled he looked, she'd come and whisk him out of boarding school and take proper care of him. Only, this afternoon I found out that this particular child is actually a day pupil.

Not that my own kids always look amazingly well-groomed, mind you. Sophs, for instance ...I send her to school every morning washed and brushed with her hair tidy, and when I pick her up, she looks like a wild thing, all grubby and dishevelled, shoes muddy and hair in crazy tendrils, even though most of the other little girls still look pristine and perfect. And she's recently taken to wearing her old grotty school shoes instead of her new shiny ones, because she prefers the way the worn-out ones look.

So maybe I am wrong about this boy; maybe he comes from a perfectly loving home. I hope so. But the vibe I get from him is one of sadness and neglect, so ... who knows.