I'm in two minds about whether this makes me happy. I went to the cash machine today to check my balance before doing a little shopping. When I approached the machine it was beeping and £50 was sticking out of the cash slot. I hadn't seen anyone using the machine on my approach and noone was wandering around looking confused so I took the cash and held onto it for a couple of minutes while I checked my balance. Noone came back to the machine so I pocketed the money and went about my business. I feel bad, but I gave £10 to daughter and spent £26 on food and daughter's hair dye. The balance of my account was actually shocking so the money's come in very handy. I need to get over my guilt, and I will... By spending the rest on drinks for me and my friend later.

After a meeting with a new social worker, daughter made me smile with a few observations.

• I very rarely ask her to do chores. I put this down to knowing she was used kind of like a 'runaround' at her mum's place, always doing jobs and fetching things for mummy from other rooms etc. I was brought up in an environment where my mum did virtually everything for me, and I want to give my daughter time to be a child.
  
• She's actually looking forward to moving into somewhere new, specifically to having her own space and being able to decorate her room.

That she's looking forward to moving gives me hope that I'm doing a positive thing in trying to take her on full-time. It felt like she had her heart set on moving back with her mother, but with her being incommunicado at the moment and the social worker saying I should 'go for it' things seem to be falling into place for that to happen. I know it's going to be a struggle and upheaval but hopefully after this we can have a period of stability and growth we can both enjoy.

One of my colleagues told me a customer had payed me a compliment. She'd said 'Who is this man on the phone who is always so nice to me?' My colleague told her 'He's always nice to everyone.' How lovely!

We made more smoothies today - blueberry, banana and oat. They looked fantastic and tasted great too, although after half an hour they'd become really thick. We should keep this up regularly - there's some great flavours out there waiting to be whizzed-up and drunk and they're so good for us, and incredibly filling too.

We made more fruit smoothies last night. This one was less inspirational than the last but I could definitely feel my body saying good things about it. Blackberry, banana, oat, honey, yoghurt and milk whizzed up to a nice thick consistency. As an attempt to get fruit back into my diet and increase my fibre intake, this is a success.

I've eaten breakfast two mornings in a row. I know this doesn't sound like much but for a guy who knows all about the benefits of a solid breakfast I've been terribly lax in having it regularly. I hope to keep it up - I know it can only have a positive influence on my general health.

One of my work colleagues told me today that they'd thought about offering me a car to help with my business launch in the spring. This would be an enormous help and I think it'd probably come at a bargain price too. The family in question are lovely and I've always been good friends with the man who mentioned it to me. I was really humbled and I'd have to work my backside off to repay their kindness.

Daughter and I went and stood on the highest hill in town to see if we could see the local town fireworks display. Unfortunately they were on last weekend so it was something of a disappointment. Less disappointing was that she saw her first shooting star and made a wish. Even better, she saw another one, and maybe another!

Last night I had one of my oldest friends over for dinner, beer and chat. It's the first time we've spent time alone together in years and I really enjoyed myself. His life is particularly difficult at the moment so hopefully I was a handy ear to bend. We talked and drank beer - not to excess - played chess and PlayStation and I finally kicked him off to bed at midnight as he was falling asleep on the sofa and is notoriously difficult to shift when he does that!

I cooked toad in the hole with home-made roasted mixed onion gravy which was just superb. The batter rose perfectly and had some soft bits and some crunchy bits, the sausages were ok (although I'd use butcher-bought sausages next time) and the gravy was sublime.

There's a few new happy things to post but until they're more concrete I'm stopping myself getting excited about them for fear of serious disappointment should it all go tits-up.

Daughter and I went out with our friend L last night. It was lovely - I'm not sure we've done anything on our own before without other friends there, so it was nice to see her.

I'd bought daughter a couple of new books. She'd read part of one of them in the back of another book and said she was looking forward to reading the whole thing because it ended on a coat-hanger. Bless her.