I went in to see Isobel at ten to two, hoping to entice her into the wheelchair and down to the lounge to see the dancing dog. There was no chance of managing this! Isobel was resolute that she did not want to move from her bed, not even to see an amazing dancing dog. Isobel ate a caramel bar and a small bar of milk chocolate from one of the boxes Jess had brought in. I had brought in with me the Christmas cards from home and showed them to Isobel and talked about who had sent them. I did not put any more up in her room as I had not yet done the reorganisation.

Isobel's speech was good today. Conversations in short sentences were almost faultless. With her mid-afternoon tea Isobel had scone with jam. After, still feeling a bit peckish, she had a banana and half a dozen biscuits. It turned out there were two performing dogs, and they made separate visits to Isobel's room to perform for her. Milo is a Labrador, and while I would not say that he actually dances, he does perform a series of actions in response to spoken instructions that are very impressive. It is interesting to see a heavy dog throwing himself around so agilely. He has apparently appeared at Crufts. The second dog was Josie, a border collie who was abandoned when six months old and then spent as long in a rescue kennels. Josie does a similar range of tricks to Milo, but also does spectacular jumps and pirouettes - again, not really dancing but certainly impressive. We needed to clear the main part of the room to make space for her performance. Isobel enjoyed the dogs performances and made a fuss of them afterwards.

Soon after the dogs had left, the doctor appeared and gave Isobel her swine flu jab. The doctor had decided that it was best not to adjust the dexamethasone dose as it also has a role in controlling fluid in the brain and the effects of reducing the dose were uncertain.

I sorted out the rubbish in the room and got rid of the flowers that had now died. I found an additional box of biscuits and another box of chocolates in Isobel's clothes drawers - this is as well as the tins and boxes in the warderobe and the chocolate in her bedside cabinet and the biscuits and chocolates under the television. If cut off by blizzards Isobel could probably live for a week on the food in her room! This of course reflects my advice to visitors and the difficulty in giving Isobel anything that she will use and enjoy. There is no doubt that she does enjoy biscuits, chocolate and fruit. The problem with fruit is that she needs help with it, although the carers will do this for Isobel, she will not ask. Towards the end of my visit Isobel's speech did get a little more rambling, but on the whole it has been much better than usual in the last two days.

I left at twenty to four, finding that in the last few minutes of my stay a blizzard of heavy but very wet snow had begun. The was no problem going down the sloping drive or on the lane, but by the time I got to Wilmington the snow was lying thickly on the refrozen snow and ice from last week. There were no real problems driving slowly and carefully across Dartford Heath and down the A2 although there was a long queue of barely moving vehicles on the exit lane at the Black Prince. By the time I crossed the A2 bridge and got to the bottom of Gravel Hill, less than half a mile from home, it had taken over forty minutes for a journey that normally takes fifteen minutes. Progress on Gravel Hill was very slow; as a Marks and Spencer's lorry six cars in front of me was having difficulty making any progress. It took over ten minutes to negotiate the first two hundred yards of the hill. During this time the feel of the road surface was changing as the falling snow became thinner but much drier as the temperature plummeted and the wet underlying material froze. The lorry finally stopped on the steepest part of the hill. The first four cars behind the lorry got past it with a lot of difficulty but the car in front of me had all kinds of problems, sliding broadside on to the slope. Although I had left a lot of space in front of me it was worrying to see its reversing lights come on several times. I got out of my car and spoke to the driver of the car in front who said he had been unable to make progress and was considering turning round! I pointed out a possible route through the ridges of ice and compacted snow caused by previous traffic and he managed to follow this. I checked with the lorry driver that he had given up trying to make progress and had tucked his lorry into the kerb - this made enough room for cars to pass safely just below the brow of the hill. I did a bit of ice engineering and briefed the car behind to follow me, then drove along the optimum route without any difficulty followed by at least a dozen cars, which should have cleared the route sufficiently. I was home a minute later. The saga on Gravel Hill had taken twenty five minutes for a normally thirty second drive. It took Iona over two hours to get back from Welling and both her staff meeting in Wilmington and her meal in Blackheath were cancelled. There were no sightings of gritting lorries until almost 11pm.