How to Survive Bookclub after just having booked a room in psychiatric hospital for close friend....

Oh yes. That heading is not a typo.

Two horrendously upsetting things happened to me today. The first one involved DH and the Australian Family Court Laws. The second one, which was much more upsetting, involved a dear dear friend.

She's been heading downhill. I've been crossing every appendage in the hope that she could fend it off at the pass. And then today every analogy came crashing together in an ugly, legs in the air, smash.

*sigh*

You see, this friend and I met in the Loony Bin. 10 years ago next month. We both had post-natal depression. And we both spent 3 months in situ with the forebearers of Homer Simpson.

In the intervening years we've both struggled with our depression demons. We're both medicated. We both regularly see a psychiatrist. And we both fall apart every now and then.

But this time her "fall apart" is too big for us to handle. She said the magic words to me. The words that we have agreed upon that mean "Gazzump the spouse, the parents, the whoever, and get me to the nut-house". And so I did.

And then I came home, sliced gherkins, donned a kaftan and hosted BookClub.

*sob*