The cousin who should have left this morning opted to stay on, hanging out with my youngest and a precocious new classmate who came up on the tube after breakfast looking like a dwarf courtesan in dangly earrings and a low cut top. They trooped off to see Alien Abduction expecting an Ant and Dec comedy and found themselves sitting through the hoary old Hangar 18 mystery - did some poor sod alien really crash land in the US desert ? After a lively tour around favourite conspiraces they grabbed skateboards and headed out again, and I turned my hand to making a lasagne while listening to Los Paraguayos - an unexpected gift from my elderly neighbour who, apprised of my ebay efforts, told me to sell it and raise a few bob for myself if I didn't like it:-) Chopping carrots I puzzled over the reply to my Daily Telegraph letter. 'I'll be in touch when things calm down.' Is that hopeful or hopeless? At least the new editor to whom I'd written is prompt. Yesterday I emailed a brilliant comment idea to the Inde and received the out-of-office auto reply, dated last week, this morning:-o At five the overnighter left for Brighton and the eldest returned for dinner and we whizzed to the South Bank, dropping off our remaining visitor en route. The night's double bill at The Cottesloe - Burn and Ciizenship - is aimed at, and about, teenagers. The first piece, which may have been about 'belonging', was ruined by a small boy behind me eating crisps. He was trying so hard not to make a noise that he ended up rustling that damn bag for the entire play. It was like having tinnitus. I evil-eyed him a bit, but it didn't work. In the interval his mother smiled apologetically. Anticipating the worst - perhaps a second half in which he grappled with pork crackling - I had trouble forcing movement at the extremeties of my mouth. The second play, about sexuality, was funny and well acted though the youngest was put out by a gay 15-year-old's on-stage snogging. My eldest, pictured here, will soon be 15 and remained blase though I doubt she's done much more than practice on the back of her hand. The days when people kept busts are gone, which is a shame. I practised kissing on Churchill's wooden head in my Aunty Vin's spare room. It was Churchill who taught me to avoid knocking noses by tilting my head.