Struggling when the ex works abroad

In my dreams, I sometimes see the words "equal access". I have visions of insane things like free weekends, something I haven't had for so long I'm baffled to think what I would do with one. I am a single parent of the very single sort.

When our son, William, was three, my husband, Alex, and I got divorced. My ex now lives and works abroad. Hence our access agreements tend to run along the lines of: "We'll be arriving at 1700 hours at Sarajevo airport," rather than, "Can you take the kid to Legoland?"

While Alex makes every effort to spend time with William, now six, visits have to be scheduled around any number of foreign elections, toppling dictators or outbreaks of war. I don't hold Alex to blame for this, but I do have to live with the knock-on effects.

Time is a big problem. Hobbies? I don't think bi-annual yoga or hoovering really count. I realised that even a time-management guru would be hard pressed to find spare corners of the day which are not already chock-a-block with domestic activity, child-rearing or trying to earn a living as a writer.

It has been very acute this past term as William, who is autistic, has been trying an integration programme at a mainstream school, meaning he has been in class for one and a half hours a day. The rest of the time he has been with me and, delightful as he is, filling up the rest of the day with activities and extra tuition has come close to sending me to an early grave. I have been writing through the night, a practice which has proved very bad for my health.

William doesn't appear to be emotionally scarred by his father coming and going - he seems to define "Daddy" as a person who appears and then vanishes - but it would be hard to argue that he is not emotionally deprived. And being a single parent can be very lonely. My son had his annual review at school last week and I wished my ex-husband had been there so I would have had the option of running out of the room, screaming, knowing Alex could give me a polite interpretation afterwards.

Instead, I was doomed to stay and hear the unhappy news alone - that my autistic child had failed to integrate into his mainstream school. To my shame, I burst into tears and probably confirmed every stereotype of the struggling single mother, failing to make it on her own.

Yes, I wish there were two of us to share William. But then Alex would be a different person and I might not have fallen in love with him. We are doing the best we can: more legislation is not going to help. But I still wouldn't say "no" to the odd free weekend.