A long night. Sam never came home last night after an evening with friends. He wasn't answering his phone or responding to texts, which wasn't like him. Finally a knock at the door revealed one of his friends who had come to tell us that Sam had collapsed in the street (too much to drink) and he wasn't sure where he was. I felt completely frantic as we rang the hospital in Edinburgh to see if he had been admitted. He had. From what I can piece together he fell and hit his head and was admitted to A&E with a head injury whilst extremely drunk. Nick drove up and I stayed at home with the girls. Needless to say we got no sleep and there has been a lot of soul searching today. Sam is fine, sore and bruised and feeling shamefaced. We are going through a whole heap of emotions - angry, disappointed, relieved, responsible.... However today was not a day for recriminations. The girls went to spend the afternoon with friends and we used the space to talk and spend time with Sam.

I am exhausted. Teenagers are bloody hard work. We try to be open minded and relatively easy going and I don't want to change that. He is a good lad, intelligent and mostly a pleasure to be around - but he needs boundaries that he accepts and respects. We need to know that when he goes out he can act responsibly. He is so lucky he wasn't more badly hurt and yes I know that many of us have been there in some drunken way or another - but when it is your own son or daughter it suddenly feels very very different.