Rejoice in the knowledge you are not the only person in this sitiuation. There are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of single mums in Britain alone who have to go through the same as you, every day, and don't have the luxery of a husband who will come back from Argentina in eight days. Plus they probably live in a crappy council house thats falling aprt in a $h!t estate where their ten year olds can't walk to school on their own, much less their five year olds. I'm guessing, maybe I'm wrong if I am forgive me, you live in a nice house with all mod cons in a nice safe place in Switzerland. So life isn't so bad. You have two lovely kids who are in good health. Enjoy them. Look on the bright side, there are plenty of people in a much worse position than yourself. Think how gutted their father will be that he won't be able to see them for over a week. It breaks my heart to go a week without seeing mine. I'd far rather be in your position I can assure you. Think how you'd feel if they were taken away from you for a week.

So, now your hopefully in a better frame of mind, practicallities. Obviously the 6 month old isn't going to be too much trouble, as they're probably barely crawling yet, as long as you keep them warm, dry, clean and well fed they'll be happy enough. So your main priority is your toddler, in terms of the energy it will take to keep them entertained and stop them driving you mad.

My experience is the best thing to do with kids is to knacker them out, let them run all that energy they've got off, so they sleep for 12 hours at night and give you a bit of a rest. Best way to do that is to take them outside in the fresh air, lots of walking, lots of parks etc. The bus ride to school can be turned into fun, kids love buses and trains etc. Maybe you coulde walk part of the way home. The snows not that bad, the Swiss seem to cope reasonably well. Try keeping them entertained at home by doing stuff you don't usually do with them, like painting, making things a la mr maker on cbeebies, baking, kids love baking, playing games, singing nursery rhymes, doing numbers and letters, kids love learning. Look on it as eight days of special time between you and your two gorgeous, loveley, adorable kids.

And just think of the repsite you'll get at being able to hand them over when your man walks through the door. And the presents he'll bring you back from South America. You are really lucky, really

Having said all that, he's probably back already. Blast. Oh well, maybe you'll find it useful next time.

Do keep us posted on how you got on and what you did, we'd be interested to know how it all turned out...