In the middle of the Inter Milan v Spurs Champions League match the other night, my daughter called to tell me about her new French class. This was just after Spurs mounted their come-back from 4-1 down; Gareth Bale had scored his first fabulous goal and the Spurs fans in the stadium were optimistically chanting, “we’re gonna win 5-4”. It was very exciting and not the time to be discussing French grammar. But then what does she know about football-watching etiquette?

It has been a very stressful week. I enjoyed reading the comments on the blog but then there was my daughter’s break-up with her boyfriend. That required hours of good listening skills and sympathy. This was swiftly followed by more hours of discussion about the potential new boyfriend, back at university. He is called Cocoa, which is slightly worrying. And sandwiched in between all this excitement, there were various arguments with two schools, in two countries to occupy me.

I just keep missing the Pope. I was in London for most of his visit to Cyprus. And now he has gone to the UK, just as I came back to Cyprus. This is not a problem as I have no desire to see Pope Benedict and would have nothing much to say to him if I ever met him. His advisor, Cardinal Walter Kasper, who dropped out of the visit at the last minute, is another matter.

At the start of this week, UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague felt the need to tweet. He thanked his supporters on Twitter for, well, being supportive in their comments over his predicament. And he said he hoped he had nailed the ‘big lie’ about him being gay. Well, I think the point is, who really cares whether or not William is gay and why is he discussing it publicly?

I heard on the radio yesterday that there were only 111 shopping days to Christmas. Sadly there are only two shopping days left for me as I am heading back to Cyprus tomorrow and all the bargains are in London. Still I have had a good go at cramming 111 days into 7 in the last week.

After the shock of the spectacular (in the worst possible way) AS results, we went away for a few days to reflect. The Troodos Mountains are great for just one thing, escaping the Nicosia heat and having nothing to do but talk. And then we went to stay in Pissouri. I was pleasantly surprised because I had not stayed at the Columbia Beach for twenty years. It has been very tastefully done up and the staff were all amazingly polite and helpful. My first such experience in a hotel in Cyprus. But then someone told me it is a German company!

After weeks of idling around in the air conditioning, today is a serious day. The first item on the BBC news this morning was a headline story about how many students in the UK and worldwide will receive their A level and AS results today. Is there any student or parent waiting for those all-important results today, who needs a reminder? While my 17-year-old son will probably sleep soundly until at least lunchtime, I have been a nervous wreck since about 6am this morning…

We all make sacrifices for our kids and some of them are more painful than others. This summer’s big sacrifice on my part was a day at a water park yesterday, which the kids and their mates thoroughly enjoyed while I struggled with the expense, the heat, the crowd and the lack of sun beds. It did, however, give me the opportunity, (whilst sitting for hours under a tree trying to avoid the sun and the other fun seekers), to ponder some of life’s more impenetrable mysteries.

I can’t believe how hot it has been for the last week. It was officially 46 degrees at one point last weekend, which means you can be sure that it was probably about 50 degrees in Nicosia at the hottest point. The sort of temperatures guaranteed to make the environmentalist lobby even more smug and patronising than usual, ranting on about climate change and carbon emissions. On the upside, it may of course help them with their penchant for dressing really badly; if you do have to go out, there is very little that you can wear in these kinds of temperatures.