You are right. This one was very quiet, things like no tv at home and very rigid on the rules (not all of which were out rules but some were hers from home). I thought she was doing well, never told me of issues other than dd throwing something in the first week, which we dealt with. Dd doesn't totally respect her (she's going through a stage of not respecting me either) but she gets on very well with her and is the first AP she had asked to put her to bed a few times. And she seemed to have integrated well, made friends that we welcomed, got stuck into family life more so than some others ( not just "off duty" as soon as we got home from work).
I will ring the agency this morning to see if an alternate is possible. But in the meantime, DH and I got to talk about it a last night and we are going to see if we can do it differently. Get someone to come in for 45mins to an hour in the mornings, to supervise dd finishing getting dressed and fed for school and do the school run. And extend the afterschool club to 5 days a week for full hours (she does 3 days until 5 pm now, but it's open until 6). Icahn get home for 6, tight but doable. And dh's travel is literally finishing up next month, at least, the long trips. He will only have occasional overnights to the uk from November, not 2 weeks in South Africa, 2 weeks at home like the last 3.5 years.
It was just such a bolt from the blue last night. I had no idea she was having problems, and had asked her to tell me if she did. Oh well, we managed well to have 5 APs see through their time, and I know most AP families have it not working out on occasion, even NT families. That's part of the reason for afterschool, not just Dd socialisation, but ensuring AP did not have too much to do hours-wise as we know DD can be intense when she is at home, she can be lovely and laid back, but does need space at times to work through things.
Oh well, worse things can and do happen. And the ramp up in stress again is what will make me stiffen up my backbone to get on wit things and stop it all getting on top of me again ( counterintuitive I know, but when it got a bit more under control recently was when I started to fall apart in myself, not that others saw it).