I forgot to say, the cat went back to my husband again. It took him 12 days, god knows where he's been. My new best friend paints a picture of him leaning on a dustbin in a back alley, talking in a NY accent - who knows?

My husband's not too keen on keeping him, especially as he's acquired fleas. But my younger daughter's happy as she goes over there a lot and gets to see him. I'd buy some flea stuff only I'm in a financial crisis right now.

I promised my daughter an 11th birthday party. She's never had a party and things have been pretty tough for her lately, what with feeling caught in the middle of me and her dad. But now I've got a summons for my council tax. I thought it was due the end of the month but it was the start. I've paid July's now, but August is due tomorrow, and they want it before they'll cancel the summons to appear in court on the 19th.

I'm financially screwed on account of having had to pay nearly £600 back rent on my old house in order to get my name off the tenancy. I was told, before I left, that I would only be liable for half the arrears, but it turns out we're both jointly liable for the lot. As he's unemployed there's no hope of him paying anything, so I copped for the whole debt. That means I'm now only renting one council house, instead of two, which is a relief.

But I'm also still waiting for my child benefit to get sorted. I was told it would take a minimum of 13 weeks! Now it's gone up to 15, with it likely to take more if their workload is heavy. Which it obviously is cos it's taken weeks even to get through to the helpline.

I should get a single person discount for the council tax, so I'm not even really liable for the amount I'm being summonned for. But I can't get that without a child benefit number. And the Student Finance people won't assess my daughter's uni loan without a single person council tax bill to prove that I'm separated from my husband.

I really do feel like I'm caught in a web of bureaucracy and it's fucking annoying.

But on the plus side my little girl is so excited about her party on Saturday. I've got to go and buy food and stuff and party bags and prizes for pass the parcel and all that shit. My other daughter said she'd help but I haven't seen her all week and she's notoriously unreliable.

And, on Saturday night, me and my gorgeous 21 year old are going to a party. It's a girl at work's 30th birthday and we're gonna be the only people from work there. He was iffy about going at first, but he texted me last night and said he thought it could be fun.

She knows about us, she saw us kissing when she went to the toilet in the pub a few weeks back, and she's been quite supportive. All the people who know have been, someone said we fit together cos we've got the same sense of humour. We have been mates a good while.

And I've told the kids I'm going to a party so I can tell my son not to wait up - he's nearly 16 - and then I can go back to my friend's and stop the night. Yippeeee!!

The cat's buggered off again.

We kept him in for 3 weeks, and suffered a lot in guilt and empathy for his imprisoned state. He seemed ok after that for a week or two. He purred a lot, slept in his favourite spots, and seemed to be fine.

Thing is, the kids all broke their hearts the first time he left, but now we just can't grieve all over again for an animal who's obviously chosen to abandon us. And he's left his fleas! We never noticed them when he was here cos they were all on him, but now they're everywhere. We've tried a spray and I've ordered some more. I hope to God it works cos my son's coming to stay on Friday. It's the first time I've seen him since Christmas and the first time he's been in my new home, so I wanted to make a better first impression than having him bitten to pieces.

Apart from that though, life's good. My husband hasn't been giving me any grief. He asks me every time he encounters me if I've got the child benefit through yet. I haven't but I suspect he has designs on it when I do. He has my youngest daughter at weekends and often through the week, and I give her money to buy food when she goes there.

But I still don't have much furniture or any carpets or curtains or a washer. And I had to pay off nearly £600 in back rent to get my name off the tenancy I shared with my husband. So I really can't spare anything else.

He also asks me if I'm seeing anyone else. He also asks the children and utters dark threats about how he knows I am, and that this person is going to 'get it'. No-one pays any attention because he went on like that for 28 years and it was never true.

But now, unbelievably, it sort of is! I had a crazy night with a guy I work with, and it seems to be turning into something more than a one night stand. He's kind and smart and funny, and he says things that turn me to jelly. There isn't any future to it, but it feels wonderful right now. So I've decided to live day to day, because I could be dead tomorrow and today feels great.

There's a couple of people know about it who know us both, and they're all for it. Which is nice.

I'm sick of being poor!

When I moved I applied for tax credits and child benefit straightaway. The form did say that it could take up to eight weeks, but it also said that some claims get sorted as early as two weeks.

Being in an optimistic/stupid frame of mind, I reckoned on it being not much more than two weeks.

Well, now when I ring they say that it takes a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks. But that time-scale is calculated from a date some weeks after I applied. Apparently it can take up to 3 weeks to reach the office that processes it.

So why don't they say it can take up to 11 weeks, instead of 8? To give us false hope I suppose, so we don't actually jump off a bridge.

I'm very lucky in that I have grown-up sons and kind friends to offer financial and emotional support. But without that I would be in really big trouble, and as it is I'm fairly deep in the shit. I keep getting threatening letters from the council about the rent. I know the most important thing is to contact them and explain. But I can't afford to put credit on my phone, and I'm working in a tiny crowded office, and ringing from there is fairly unthinkable.

My daughter managed to pick up some belongings from her dad's house at the weekend. She brought what she thought was her little sister's nightdress from her bedroom floor, but it's a woman's pink top, too big for me, one of those mumsy things with a big appliqued flower near the shoulder and another near the hem.

I'm quite glad if he's found himself another woman. It could explain why he seems to be prepared to leave me alone, unlike other times when I've tried to leave. But it does scare me a bit to think I might well never have sex again, and it's a bit humiliating to think he can still pull!

We've moved offices because our old office is being refurbished. There's nine of us crammed into a tiny room. It's really hot and we have to have loads of fans on all the time. There's no natural light and we have to climb over things and squeeze past people's chairs to get anywhere, and get buffeted in different directions by various fans, it's a bit annoying.

I've had to leave my best friend behind. I asked if he'd miss me, expecting a sarcastic response, but he just said, 'Yes' and looked a bit sad, which was nice.

Me and him and my other friend went to the pub after work on Friday. I can't normally go cos I have to pick up my daughter from the After School Club, but it was half term. We'd just got to the bar when this girl from my office turned up. She's very nice, she took me to the pub for my birthday and she's always been really friendly to me.

It was fine when it was the four of us. She started asking things about my marriage and we were having a laugh about some of the crazy things I'd been through.

But then my mate had to go and have a driving lesson, and when it was just the three of us it felt different. I was conscious that my other friend would rather talk to her than to me. She's very attractive in a sophisticated kind of way, and very clever and self-assured. She's in the process of building what will undoubtedly be a successful career, and I'm just stuck at a lower grade than I was in my early twenties.

She asked me more stuff about my past and she was very sympathetic, but my husband used to say that people are only nice to me cos they feel sorry for me, and that's how it felt. And I just became conscious of how inadequate I am.

My fifteen year old son has been angry a lot this weekend. Things are difficult what with not having a cooker or a washer. I can't make him anything he wants to eat and he gets angry and shouts. I know that's normal for a teenager, and all he wants is a mum who reacts normally. But I don't. As soon as he shouts I get all ridiculous. I panic and just want to run away. That makes him angry. He says that I'm 'acting the victim' which is a phrase his dad used all the time.

The thing is, his dad was violent and I had good reason to shake and cower. But I know my son isn't going to hit me, he just wants to vent his feelings, and he feels insulted that I act the way I do. He says that there are times when it makes him want to hit me, although he says he never would.

But will I always be like this? If I meet any other man who raises his voice will I go all stupid? And if I do, will it make him want to hit me? And does that mean that it was all my fault anyway, like my husband used to say, and that I made him hit me?

I feel very conscious of how screwed up I am, and I feel like I'm never gonna get it right. And I'm scared of being lonely and old.

I can't believe this is my life. I feel like I'm watching a film of someone with a normal life and I'll have to go back to mine at some point.

Last night my ten year old daughter came up to my office to harrass my 22 year old best friend. She threw paper clips at him, poked him in the back and told him he doesn't look smart in a suit. She also gave him and my other friend poems she'd written for them and swung round a lot in the swivel chair.

Then we went to visit a friend of mine. Her dad rang and arranged to pick her up from nearby so I stayed at my friend's and chatted. It felt amazing just being somewhere I wanted to be, with no-one hassling me. Admittedly my son was a bit pissed off when I got in and said he hadn't eaten all day, but he's 15 and should be able to sort himself out. We still haven't got a cooker, but there's a microwave and I bought various strange microwaveable things. Microwave food is really shit isn't it? What are those microwave chips all about?? Who could ever want a serving of about seven chips?

My friend's ex, father of her youngest, died recently and, apparently, they cleared out his house and threw away masses of furniture and stuff, I could have kitted out my whole house. I kind of wish she hadn't told me. Ah well, I'll get sorted when my tax credits and child benefit eventually come through.

Anyway, the main point is that I could stay out, without anyone ringing me and getting arsey. It seems unbelievable.

My husband sent my ten year old back after 11 o'clock on the train. This isn't acceptable, but I'm not sure what I can do about it. There's a lot of stuff I still need to iron out, but yeah, life feels amazing right now

We've located the cat!!!!

He went back to the old house. It's 2.5 miles (I checked on google maps). Lots of people suggested that might have happened but we all scoffed and said he was too stupid. We're hanging our heads in shame now.

Thing is, my husband knew, he saw him days ago. He's been on the phone countless times since, trying to arrange to see my daughter. She won an art contest and had her prize presented to her yesterday so we both went. She went back to his after and he mentioned, in his usual roundabout way, that he'd seen the cat several times over the past week.

He didn't let him in the house because he had no food for him. He could still have given him milk. But what amazes me is that he never bothered mentioning it. I've had to hold each of the kids in my arms as, one by one, they realised he was missing and were convulsed with misery. I walked round the streets at dusk with my son calling the cat's name on Sunday night and watching him suffer as we heard cats that turned out not to be ours.

The kids aren't surprised, but I am. Now we do feel a bit guilty though, cos we'll have to bring him back here and he's gone to such lengths to get back where he wants to be. But it's wonderful to see the kids happy again.

I took a half day this morning to get broadband put on, then there was a power cut just before the bloke arrived so he couldn't do it. He went off to another job then returned ten minutes after I had to leave. The power came back on about 3 minutes after he drove off as well. Very frustrating. But at least the cat's OK!

Still no cat. I've been told of about 87 different cats who wandered off for days/weeks then returned, but I don't want me and the kids to live on false hope for ages.

My husband rang last night and persuaded me to go for a drink with him, greatly against my better judgement and the advice of my friends at work. I'd been thinking through the day that I did kind of miss having someone to lean on, given the whole cat situation. Realised my mistake virtually the second we met up though.

He was creepy, manipulative, asked me a barrage of pointless questions, then turned nasty and accused me of lying, cheating and robbing my children of food. Thankfully my 10 year old daughter rang after half an hour, distraught about the cat and begging me to come home. (I don't mean I'm thankful she was distraught, that was upsetting, just really glad to have an excuse to leave.)

It was such a huge relief to get back to our new house. It may not have cooker, washer, carpets or much else, but it is so great. My son said last night that he was in the kitchen and just suddenly felt overwhelmed with the sense of how great it all is.

My cat's gone missing. I feel awful because I was the one who shoved him unceremoniously into a cat carrier and brought him here.

We've been here a week and a half now and he seemed to be settling in. But we've got a wood and fields at the back with wild rabbits, and probably foxes. And he might have got lost or been targetted by unsavoury young people or run over or anything.

Or he could be injured and unable to get home. But we'll very likely never know. My 18 year old daughter's heartbroken, the 10 year old doesn't fully understand the implications yet, she just knows he didn't come home yesterday. My son's got a GCSE today and he was out last night so he doesn't realise yet.

I hate the fact of having to deal with all their individual griefs. Then there's my 2 older sons in London and Korea.

Other than that things are minly good. My husband persuaded me to give him £110 for the phone bill and tv license installments and cat flea spray. I arranged for him to come to my place of work to get it, then he rang and said he was too tired and I'd have to take it to him. I know, I'm an idiot. I don't have any money now, my tax credits still haven't got sorted, and my daughter's been invited to a party on Sunday so I'll have to get a present.

But being in our new house is so good, and the kids are starting to calm down - years of living with stress takes a bit of undoing. And it was my birthday yesterday. A girl at work bought me lunch in the pub and everyone was really nice. And the kids got me lovely things, a mascara I really wanted, a dinner service (white with square plates - how rad is that eh?)and a model fairy with pink shiny trainers for my desk. And my brother sent me a dvd - The Big Lebowski.

And my line manager refused to believe I was anywhere near 50, so I had to tell her I'm 55. And I felt loved by everyone. Which is always good.

I should be back online at home next week, which means I won't have to do this illicitly at work, along with answering all my emails and generally trying to run my life on my employer's time!

The cat came back finally. Then he went out again. Then my husband went out, then I went out to the shop to top up my phone.

But when I came back the cat was back, so I grabbed him and shoved him in his cat box and we grabbed a couple of things and ran over the road, and hid behind the bungalows opposite. Then I rang a taxi.

While we were waiting for it my husband rang my phone, so we knew he'd come home. My daughter started whimpering. Then the cab came and we piled in.

When we got to the new house she started crying, and it did feel a bit shitty leaving like that. I texted him and told him where I'd left the note I'd written, and that was that.

All we have in our new house are two armchairs, a tv, and some inflatable beds. And yesterday I bought a kettle and an iron, so now we can have Pot Noodles and Cuppa Soup!!

The kids are a bit stressed. It was an adventure at first, but now it's getting a bit hard. Also, my 15 year old son used to vent all his anger on my husband and I was the good guy. But now I'm finding myself the target for his wrath and it's a bit difficult at times.

He starts his GCSEs next week, so it'll get worse before it gets better. Also my husband is trying to fuck me over for the tax credits by ringing up and claiming the kids are living with him, which will delay me getting any money. I need money! No, I mean I really do!!!

But things will get better. And going home from work last night to my little house was just so so good!

I should be starting a new life today.

I've been aiming to start a new life since January, when I made the momentous decision to start a new life.

I rang this place called Options. It's actually the Domestic Violence Unit, but it's been rebranded as a chocolate drink in order to make it sound more cuddly. They made it sound dead good, they said I could apply for a council house and then they'd fit it out with furniture from the local church. I told my friend at work, and he said it sounded kind of cool but wouldn't pews be a bit uncomfortable. We agreed the font would be good though.

Anyway, they sorted out my housing application without me having to go to the town hall, cos my husband rings me at work several times a day, then when I'm on the train coming home, then picks me up from the station.

Then I had to bid for houses. Then I got offered one, which is brilliant. It took a couple of weeks to get the repairs done, then I had to go down and get the keys and sign stuff. That was a nightmare. He kept ringing my mobile. It got me so flustered that I got on the wrong metro, then had to double back, so I was half an hour late.

I rang my mate (not the pews one, my other mate)at work and my husband had rung there. He made a plausible excuse, but then I was gone so long that he rang my mate about six times. I finally walked back in, and he doubled up with silent laughter, pointing to the phone in his hand.

My tenancy started a week ago. That means I've got my name on two tenancies, and rent arrears at two houses. This is because I can't get the child tax credits and child benefit transferred to my name until I move.

I kept ringing the Options woman and getting an answering machine, or being fobbed off. Finally she sorted out two armchairs and a fridge. She said she'd try and get a three piece suite but it wasn't definite. She said, 'If you've got a 3 piece you can sleep on that, can't you?' I said, 'Well, not really. Not all four of us!'

My quiet voice of reason in my head was hissing, 'Be nice to her, you really need her.'

Anyway, she managed to get two inflatable beds and some sleeping bags to lend us. So now we've got the basics, and we planned to move yesterday.

But he won't go out! His mum's abroad, which I didn't know, which means he's not going over there. I was counting on him at least going out to score, but then he insisted I go shopping with him, and announced on the way that he had to call in at his friend's.

And the cat hasn't come home, and I can't leave without him. So my 15 year old son has taken my 10 year old daughter out up the town to try and relieve the pressure. They're gonna go to the new house and wait, and if I don't turn up they'll have to come back here.

He's got this uncanny knack of fucking things up, even when he doesn't know about them.

Where the hell is the bloody cat???