Hello again. I did have a look at the uni accom idea but at the ages the DC are now, it's not really suitable. Some day.
We're still chugging along. I'm doing my last day's teaching of the summer term and then just parents evening x2 next week and then I'm on holiday til September!!! Unpaid after the first three weeks unfortunately but at least I can claim the dole. I was hoping to get a summer school but that hasn't come off and although I've been paid finally for the first book I did there's been no word of doing more, past a vague "well, there's no hurry". We'll see.
DH is still looking and looking for work and there's still nothing nothing nothing and we keep hearing of more and more contemporaries/friends losing theirs. 
. I'm going to write to agencies I've worked for in the past and see if I can pick up any bits of translation over the summer. We have got a fully subsidised nursery place (0? a month) for DD next year, so that's good. We were paying a very small amount this year, but we're poor enough to pay nothing next year.
Going out tomorrow night for the big works do, a paid for slap up meal for all the staff in a swanky restaurant that I'd never be able to even have a coke in normally, so that should be fun.
DM has mostly been OK and when she's not I think I deal with it better. I invited her to DD's end of term nursery show and she got a bit funny as I'd thought she could sit, but then there were only 2 chairs per child and so I said DH and I wanted to watch and she could come in at the back and she got a bit "you KNOW I can't stand for more than a minute", which is fair enough, I hadn't handled it well, but she went on in a way a normal person wouldn't. Anyway she schlepped off all weepy, but when DD actually came on stage I rang DM and said "she's on now, pop over and watch her for a min". (she lives opposite). She did and apologised for any misunderstandings and that seemed to sort things out. I think now she knows I won't take any shit she gives in more quickly.
I still have to police myself not to offer myself too much or let myself be guilted into things, not to put her first above everyone else. It's a hard habit to fully break.
The hospital appointment she missed in December when she stormed off was supposed to be this week but has been changed again to August, when we were going away. I haven't mentioned us going away (although she knows we like to then, as we can go with DH's cousins) or me taking her to the appt. When it came through I was at her house and she started all the "I'm not going, there's no point, they can't do anything to help me..." So I just kept my mouth shut. I figure, if she wants to go she can actually get there on the train and if she doesn't want to then she can miss it, she's an adult and it's her choice. If there's a huge fuss, I'd even come back for the day (we'd only be an hour and a quarter), take her to the appt and drive back down to the beach. But, I'll see. it's up to her to organise and decide if she wants to go.
Still look back in amazement at the last three years and can't quite believe I put up with so much for so long and made poor DH put up with it too