Hi. How's it going? Good. Got any snow where you are? None here so far.

Been busy this month - a friend's birthday party for Euan at the Jolly Jungle, which he loved. And I got him a new bed, with a slide to get down, and a tent underneath, which has made bedtime loads of fun. We also attached a shelf to it for his clock and water, and a battery light underneath with his bookcase, and lots of padded stuff where he lands. I'm so jealous.

My bathroom is also gradually edging further towards perfection. It's mainly just decorating and a bit more sealing to be done, then I'll nuke all the mould around the window with bleach, and it will be gorgeous. I finally allowed myself to buy a bath caddy with built-in wine glass holders, candle holder and book support. They reduced the price by a fiver. How could I refuse?

At this rate, the whole house will look presentable in a few months and I won't be able to hold a Eurovision party for fear of damaging all my hard work! This year it's the same day as Dan's birthday, so maybe I'll just let him host a party instead.

Andrea's friend Rob came round last week, for an evening of pizza and Gears of War. We never got round to playing poker. We all got far too interested in beating each other up on DOA4. It was a fun evening, but I was struggling to keep my eyes open by the end of it. Rob's an electrician, and Andrea had mentioned to him about my weird house with its strange electrics.

I showed him the 17 sockets in the kitchen. And the fact that there is only one functioning socket in each of the other three rooms. I pointed out which bits of wiring didn't work. He looked at the antique board in the kitchen, and he said at least I had a something-or-other so no-one would die. Jolly good. He took a socket or two off the wall. He turned round with a look of disbelief on his face. There were bare wires behind them all, which apparently needs sorting out. Oh dear.

But at least he said it's basically safe. Kind of. But apparently a couple of days later he said to Andrea, "Make sure she gets that wiring sorted out" so it must have been playing on his mind.

I'll add it to the list, right after "get a new boiler".

Oh, and a new entry at number one this week, shooting all the way up to the top of the chart, we have "fix the roof". Steve went up in the spider-infested loft, helped me sort out what actually needed storing in there, and said, "I can see daylight. In lots of places." Only the windy side of my house has felting. On the other side, you can just see the wooden roofy bits (struts? rafters?) with slates nailed onto them. And there are lots of gaps. One of which had been stuffed with a carrier bag, not very successfully, by a previous occupant. It was full of water. So maybe all the damp that I had attributed to my porous walls (a non mover at number five, "coat the walls with something waterproof"...) was actually just trickling down from the sodden roof.

Looks like I'm going to have to stand my ground in court with Abbey. I'll need all the money I can get.

Oh, and another mildly worrying thing that's happened. Back in December when I went to see my doctor, he noticed I was overdue a smear test. Damn. I was carefully forgetting to book it.

So I made an appointment with the nurse. For the uninitiated, the unpleasantly-titled smear is a rather intrusive little procedure. A nurse uses something the size of a Renault Clio to get a damn good look at your cervix, and then she takes a little bit of it to send off to a lab on a slide.

Although the nurses tend to be chatty, professional and kind, there's always a feeling of "I'm glad that's over." And about a month later you get a letter saying, "Well done, you have a very boring cervix, see you in three years."

Except this time my letter said, "Erm. You've got a weird one. The hospital will be in touch. PS - Don't worry."

The hospital got in touch, and gave me an appointment for yesterday with the colposcopy department. If you want to know what colposcopy is, ask Wikipedia. I'm not going to try and butter it up for you. Suffice it to say, they don't use a Renault Clio. They go straight for the Scenic.

The upshot is that I had mostly normal cells, with a few crazy wild ones doing their own thing, you know, partying, getting a bit out of control, and it's the start of the slippery slope which ends with cancer.

Note: no cancerous cells were there. Just some CIN3 ones. Again, for the medically morbid, here's the link.

So they used an electrical heated thingy that sounded like a jet engine, and they basically sliced all the baddies out. They were very nice people, happy to let me talk crap to take my mind off it, but at one point I resorted to counting the number of little squares on a ceiling vent, because it was a bit painful. Even though they used loads of local anaesthetic, making my legs go wobbly.

Steve drove me home. I pottered about the house. I took painkillers. I slept. That's pretty much how today's gone too, except I made the mistake of trying to be constructive. I spent most of the morning on the phone trying to sort out my gas bill. I won't even go into detail about how utterly wank the whole gas situation is. It was a mistake to phone them... but in a way, when else am I going to have three hours to devote to it when the call centres are open?

Ho hum. Actually, reading that back, I feel surprisingly upbeat considering how much crap has come flying in this direction lately.

Oh, and Sylvia babysat whilst Steve and I went to see Rocky Balboa at the weekend. It was fab, I was surprised to find. As he says, "It aint about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward."

I think I'll bear that in mind.

Hello blog. Long time no see.

I keep meaning to write to you. I really do. I think of things that would make interesting/diverting/observational babble entries when I'm on the bus or in work or in town, but I never seem to find the time to commit finger to keyboard.

So here I am. And there's a lot to write. I'll try and limit my ramblings to only the interesting bits. But I might get distracted, so no promises!

So... things have been going quite well. Looking at the last time I wrote, I can see that not even the Bonfire Night celebrations have been waffled about. They were fun. Euan and Steve and I went round to Andrea's brother's place, and we all really enjoyed the pyrotechnic displays, hot dogs and pizzas. Especially Euan. Especially the pizza.

Then the week after, Steve and I joined John and his friend for an evening at the MEN arena to see Muse. I'm quite a fan. Steve and I sat in the disabled bit because of Steve's knee, and I know it makes me sound old and boring but I much prefer the comfort of a folding seat and somewhere to put my pint down. A lovely evening, and a fantastic performance. I just grinned like a Cheshire cat all the way through, and completely lost myself in the show.

Then the day after, Mum and I went to Liverpool to meet Auntie Angela. Not much shopping happened, but plenty of talking. And then a yummy meal, followed by the strangest experience of the year. (And that takes some doing.) After eating, we moved to the comfy seats so that Angela could smoke, so I meekly asked if I could cadge a cigarette... yes, I've quit, but not when I'm drinking! I can justify this exception at length, but it sounds better when I'm drunk. The strange part was that Mum asked for a drag. Then she asked for a whole cigarette. She hasn't smoked for 21 years, meaning I have no memory of seeing her smoke. But there she was, puffing away like a pro, saying that perhaps, it seems, it never really leaves you. I can't explain the oddness of the moment, and I can't explain why Mum felt she wanted to try a dirty filthy ciggie, but there you go. It happened, one of those strange moments where you feel like just an observer in something that's taken over. Maybe Mum felt the same, maybe she was in an odd mood, because I don't think she's tried again since. Then afterwards we went to Ikea, and I bought a green door curtain and a leafy light, to continue the jungle theme in Euan's room.

And then at the start of December it was Ryan & Rachel's fancy dress party. No particular theme, the invite said, "anything weird, wacky and fun!", so Steve wore a boiler suit, hockey mask and machete and went as Jason Vorhees from the Friday 13th series, and I was a cheerleader with bloody slashes here and there. The typical teen-horror-movie victim, of course. We stood out quite well from all the pirates, hippies, schoolgirls and clowns. Caroline went as a Pink Lady, because she didn't fancy going as a nun to complement Robin's monk outfit.

Earlier that day we'd had the North Wales RCSL (Revenue & Customs Sports & Leisure) Bowling competition. Since there weren't many competitors, and one dropped out at the last minute, we all got a trophy. Nicola won the women's category with me as runner-up and Dan won the men's category, (which is of course due to Steve being unable to bowl properly until his knee is better [His bad knee was almost completely healed, so I would have beat him anyway - Dan]) but it meant a very hurried filling-in of the RCSL membership form for Dan on the Monday.

I gatecrashed Andrea's team's Christmas Do on the previous Friday as well. I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but I started enjoying myself when we got there. The meal was OK. Then we played pool, which was fun. Then I fell asleep. In Barracuda. In town. On Al's shoulder. I believe there are photos, but I have no particular wish to see them. It was a combination of exhaustion and alcohol, I think, because it certainly wasn't late. So Al and I went for a kebab, and he gave me a lift home, and I had a long night's sleep. Which was rather nice. I had warned Andrea that I was too tired to tag along! I don't think she quite understood what I meant until she saw me snoring quietly in a bar in town.

So the weekend after that I was supposed to be going on a shopping coach trip to York. I say "supposed" because I never made it. Long story. I shall shorten it with the absolute minimum of bitchy recriminations. More or less. It's my blog so a certain amount of bitchiness is inevitable.

It was a CSSC (Civil Service Sports and Leisure) trip. It was organised by someone else, but I had agreed to be a contact point in the office. Unfortunately, the organiser proved impossible to contact, leaving me to deal with queries about cost, time of departure, etc etc. So by the Friday, I had decided to charge everyone the "estimated £7" and told everyone to turn up at the "estimated 8am", in the absence of any more definite information. So when I came into work on the Friday to find two messages for me, one from our organiser asking me to phone her and one from "Barry the Bus" asking if we still wanted the coach trip to York, I chose to phone Barry first to definitely confirm because I was holding the money for 40-odd people expecting to be taken to York the following day. Then I phoned, and finally got hold of, our organiser to say that everything was under control, I had taken the money and we could refund people if it turned out to be less in the end, and I had told everyone 8am, because I didn't know what else to say, but it was fine because Barry had also phoned and I'd told him 8am as well, so everything was going smoothly...

And she said she wasn't using Barry this year, she had been over-ruled by the treasurer, and was using a different bus company, and Barry should have known when she didn't confirm it...

You know that sinking feeling? The feeling you can only possibly get when you've just spent five minutes telling someone "Sorry she never got back to you, yes we're definitely going, 8am please, my name's Gemma, I'm sort of her contact in the office, I'll introduce myself tomorrow morning, and incidentally how does she usually pay you?"

And then when I rang her she said I'd have to phone Barry back and tell him that the coach & driver he'd had reserved for a couple of months would not be required. She said she didn't have his number. So I said I had it in front of me. She said she had no credit to phone him.

So I phoned. I took back everything I'd said a few minutes earlier. I felt like shit. He sounded gutted. Well, to be honest, he sounded like a man who'd just lost a few hundred pounds in the space of a few minutes, unsurprisingly.

Bear in mind that I work in Debt Management for the Revenue. I speak to people about overpaid Tax Credits. My whole job involves talking to people about stuff that really upsets them. I can deal with this, all day, every day. And yet this phone call really got to me.

I went for a cuppa.

And people I saw in the kitchen mentioned York the next day, because somehow I've become the New Face of CSSC in the office... and I very unreasonably burst into tears. They beat a hasty retreat. I don't blame them, as it was quite an over-reaction.

The cherry on the icing on the cake, as they say, was that our organiser phoned me when I got back to my desk (NO CREDIT???) to ask how Barry had taken the news. "Not very well," I replied, with a great deal of control, considering.

But I still fully intended to go the next day. I had bought flapjacks and cakes as bribery for Euan on the long journey, Nicola was picking us up at 7.30am, I had the bus money and the spreadsheet printout in my bag, all ready to go. I had my shopping list of the few remaining presents I still needed to buy. York is a lovely place, and perfect for getting the last few presents. But I was awake at 3am. Because something went "twang" in my back. See Babbles from January 06 to see the effect of Gem's back deciding it doesn't want to play any more.

I lay there, willing it to twang back into place. I tried to find a position that was comfortable. I fidgeted relentlessly, and when the alarm went off at 6am, I did my usual lunge across the room to shut it up... except this time it wasn't a grab-click-relax. It was a grab-AAAARRRGHHHH... collapse on floor.

Then I tried to stand up. Nope!

I tried to sit down... nope.

Nothing seemed to be working. My pathetic bleats of pain woke Steve up and he asked if I was OK and I said, "No, I can't move" so he suggested I lie down again.

I don't think my response was very reasonable. It went along the following lines: "I can't stand, and I can't sit, and if I lie down I'll never move again but I really really REALLY need a wee, and since I started moving my head feels really weird and I think I'm going to throw up as well!"

So, sensibly, reasonably, he asked where I kept my sick bucket. I yelled that I didn't fucking have one, as if somehow that was his fault too.

Anyone want to be in Steve's place right now? Anyone? No?

So I said, "Everything fucking hurts but if I don't get to bathroom RIGHT NOW I'm going to end up paying for a new carpet too and that's more than I can handle right now so I'm fucking walking no matter how much it fucking hurts." I don't think Steve knew what to say. I hadn't really left him any options in the "caring helpful boyfriend" category. At six in the morning on a Saturday.

I made it. I dealt with my most pressing needs. I then ended up lying on the bathroom floor saying, "Erm... Steve? Erm... help..."

Which, all credit to him, he did.

But I think York was a write-off, as any movement that involved lifting my right leg sent nasty pains shooting down it.

So I didn't make it to York. My back fixed itself within a couple of days. And I'm no longer going to be a contact in the office. It's an impossible task, and I could do without the extra hassle.

The week after that was the Social Club Christmas Do. It was also our team's Do, but I'd opted for the former because the meal was already paid for. It was OK. The meal was adequate, the disco was predictable, the venue was all right. Steve did go and dance with someone else, but he's received so much aggro about it from the girls in work ever since that I don't really need to say anything. And besides, I wasn't in a dancing mood. And he didn't know it was the last dance. And it was only cheesy Mariah Carey.

Then when we got to town I went off to meet up with our group (they had my mobile, which I'd left in work, except that it turned out they didn't because Mum had helpfully taken it home with her, so I wouldn't lose it...) and at this point I started getting tipsy and really enjoying the evening. Then Steve found me, I explained about the mobile, and he asked if we could go home because he was very drunk and had managed to escape the clutches of the girls on his group, who would have bullied him into staying out for hours. So we went home. A bit of a mis-matched night, but nice enough. When we got back to Steve's, I walked home, got changed, fed the animals, then walked back to his so I could have a proper lie-in the next day. So responsible it barely sounds like me.

Then the week after that was a bit strange. Started OK, but on Tuesday I turned up at the school only to be told that there was no school. Oh. Great. Back home, re-read the note I'd got from school the previous week. Still not clear, ring the school, clarify what time I'm supposed to bring him in for the "infant Christmas party", ask them why "infant nativity" doesn't also apply, and how on earth I'm meant to deduce this without psychic abilities. Did I mention I'd burst into tears on the bad-clueless-parent walk of shame home, and hadn't stopped yet? And does the £4 towards "party, cinema and puppet show" therefore apply to him? No? Jolly good. They mention that it's his own clothes, not uniform. I ask where that's written.

Then they put the headmaster on the phone, because he writes the notes home. He pointed out that no-one else had turned up that morning, and why hadn't I taken any notice of the reminder? I begged his pardon? I had received a reminder about the Thursday, and had rearranged Euan's childcare accordingly, but had had nothing regarding the Tuesday. Well everyone else had received it. Well, good for them. Did the school seriously expect every scrap of paper to make it home to mummy, when it was handed to a three year-old at 11.30am, had to survive the rest of the day in nursery, then reached me at 6.20pm if I was lucky? he laughed at me and said education is just as much the responsibility of the parents as the teachers... WHAT THE FUCK? He was spouting his standard lines at me, whenever a parent's upset about anything, remind them that it's not just up to the school to instil a sense of social responsibility into little Levi or Lambrini. And how the hell is that relevant to a Christmas party? How was that remotely connected to the conversation? Which ended rather stuntedly. I must admit that the mental image I now had of the gentleman in question was your typical Welshy never-left-the-village, been-a-teacher-all-my-life, waiting-for-retirement old geezer. Judging purely by the notes home (not much grasp of computers) and his voice/manner on the telephone (more bloody parents?) I had a rather detailed picture of him in my head. Admittedly, for the rest of that day, it was also peppered with imaginary darts.

Rang nursery. Yes they can have him straight away. Yes they can drop him off at school later for the party. No problem. They're good like that.

Drop Euan off. Deana sees my puffy eyes and asks what's up. She gets the abridged version. She tells me that she's been looking after Euan since he was three months old, and there are a lot of kids at that school who could learn from him, and a lot of parents who could learn from me, and take no notice of the nasty man.

It helped more than you would expect.

You see, the weaselly little fucker had attacked me right in my weak spot, without even realising it.

Because I have no idea if I'm doing this whole parenting thingy right. I don't have lots of mates with sprogs. There's only Andrea, and it seems to come naturally to her. She certainly has confidence in her decisions. And I can't copy her, because Euan's older than Ethan. So I muddle through, acutely aware that I can't really use too many tricks from my own childhood because I turned out to be a geeky outcast, which I don't want Euan to go through. So I don't have a plan. I don't know what I'm doing. And when things go wrong, naturally I shoulder all the blame because there's no-one else to take it. And when his headmaster criticises my parenting skills, it hits very hard, even if I know deep down it was just a get-out line, used on anyone and everyone.

So support from Deana, who is a mum and runs a nursery, will probably stay in my small reserve of self-confidence boosters for a long time.

Euan went to nursery. Steve and I went to work. I lasted about an hour before I started discreetly crying at my desk. Several politely caring emails hit my inbox. I replied that thank you but I'd be worse if I talked about it. Then after a while Gill took me into the little side room and asked what was up, and I dissolved into a big blubbery lump.

She used to be head of the governors for her school. She offered her support. She said that teachers are most stressed in the run-up to Christmas because there's so much going on, so it probably wasn't meant and certainly wasn't deserved. And definitely wasn't acceptable. And she'd help me draft a complaint letter to the head of governors when I'd calmed down if I wanted. That helped a lot.

I left early, had a cuppa at Steve's, then collected Euan, and went home. When Euan was in bed, I started on the port. The really nice posh stuff. It was very nice. I drank the remainder of the bottle, then started on the cheaper port. Definitely the better way round, because I didn't notice that it was lower quality by this point.

I also texted Steve to say I was getting an early night, and he needn't bother coming round when he left his mates' house.

Unfortunately, he phoned me to say goodnight as he was walking home. I was very drunk by this point. I ranted. I felt thoroughly sorry for myself. And he reassured me. And he came round. And I felt better. And he promised to stop teasing me about my fat bits and droopy bits (I protested about that in my "everything's wrong" rant.) Because he didn't mean it. And I was only being over-sensitive. And whilst I know this, I start to doubt it after a while. I worry that he means it. And laughing it off becomes harder.

And, in a strange way, that utterly shit day has helped. Steve doesn't tease me about my body any more. He occasionally refers to my dim girly brain, but that one really does bounce off, because the one thing I have confidence in is my IQ. I apologise if that sounds conceited, but even my critical self-deprecating views can't argue with so much evidence. If there were a common sense test I'd fail every time though.

So I've been feeling better since then.

The Thursday was Euan's Christmas concert. Since they're just the little nursery class, they'd been learning songs since September, and they had some older children helping. A few children at a time came forward to sing their bit, either the snowflakes or the reindeer or whatever. But Euan was Father Christmas. And he stepped forward on his own. And he was the only one who had his own line to sing: "You girls and boys won't get any toys if you don't pull me out!"

I know he's only three, and it's not like he's got a degree in anything, but this little moment gave me so much parental pride. I've never felt anything quite like it. It was a combination of "I did that" and "He's mine" but also... "He's his own person" because of course, I'd had no idea it was coming. And whilst I was feeling this odd pride-by-association, I was also very aware that school was his world, and I was no more than an observer.

And observe I did... from the good-looking kids who seemed to have it all sussed already, to the unfortunately goofy ones, who you really sympathise with, because they're going to have a hellish time of it. And all the parents, many of whom I recognised from the drop-offs in the mornings. The one who looks like a footballer's wife. The older chap - a dad or a grandad? I can't exactly ask. The one with a large brood of kids orbiting her all the time, who seems to have made it her aim to raise as many sprogs as possible. She has very short hair. I can understand why. But most of all I observed their teacher, who led the singing, played the piano, and was constantly nudging kids and keeping it all running. You know you're getting old if you mentally wince when someone else kneels down.

After the concert, I hung around to say goodbye to Euan while Steve popped home to get changed. Euan came running out, straight into the arms of his Nana Su, ignoring me. I busied myself with collecting his folder of Christmas decorations. I told myself it was because she only gets the fun bits, she doesn't have to get him to school for a set time, she still gives him a bottle and a dummy and sweeties (he's told me), she panders to him, so why am I worrying if Euan prefers her? Eventually I got my goodbye hugs from Euan, he went off with Nana Su and Steve picked me up. We were going straight to Rita's funeral. Steve's next-door neighbour and a good friend of his mum's. It was actually lovely, as far as any funeral can be. A hymn then a Christmas carol. A heartfelt tribute from the vicar. And back to their house for a buffet and a cosy gathering amongst the Christmas cards and sympathy cards. Everything felt quite Christmassy, but just a little bit displaced. Very nice though.

Predictably, I didn't work a very long day on the Friday. I'd already planned to go to lunch with Andrea. She also wanted me to go out that night, but I cancelled because I had a podcast planned with John and Dan. She asked when it would be finished, and pressed me to go out afterwards. I gave in. OK, it didn't take much pressure because we'd had a lovely lunch and both wanted to carry on.

So we tried recording a podcast. To cut a long, boring, technical story short... it didn't work. So I rather assertively suggested that Andrea and I should go out while there was still some night left, and John could get his laptop/microphones etc working, and we'd record the last bit when I got back. Possibly quite tipsy. It sounded like as good a plan as any.

Andrea and I went out. Considering that it was Fighting Friday, we didn't see any trouble. It was busy though. They were selling tickets to see Eton Road (off of X-factor!) in Chicago Rock. Urgh. And I wanted to go to Central Station (usually pleasantly rocky or indie) but Nicola tells me it was dancey all night anyway. So Andrea and I ended up in Scotts. Good grief it's bad in there. I'd never been. I hope I never go again. I got to the sober bored stage, where it's too late to try and recapture the drunkenness, Andrea was thoroughly enjoying the attention of a group of lads, and all I was thinking about was the taxi queues we'd face if we stayed to the bitter end.

We stayed to the bitter end. The taxi queue was bad. Ah well.

Strange night though, earlier on in Chicago a rather tall attractive chap had caught my eye, and leaned over to say, "Did you used to do theatre?"

That was unexpected. Well yes, actually, I did. With more confidence, he said, "It's Gemma, isn't it?" I nodded, and as I looked at him the penny slowly dropped. "I'm Robert..."

"...Jenkins! Oh my God, so you are!" I stood there looking like a moron for a good few seconds whilst my head obligingly provided a montage of memories from my murky teenage years. The Little Theatre... heavy make-up and the darkness of backstage... Bugsy Malone... after party... all the cool kids playing spin the bottle with some heavy petting going on, not just a light kiss... sitting in the corner with my pint, observing but not knowing how to join in... talking to Robert... he asked me out. I'd never been asked out before. I think we went for a grand total of one "date" in town, which culminated in a cuppa in a little cafe, but it was a date, and he was my first official boyfriend, for a whole week or so... I even kept his phone number for a while. He did wonders for my self-confidence.

Of course, it wouldn't have been practical to try to convey all this over the loud music, so I leaned over and said, "I was... shy. Back then." He glanced down at the revealing corset top I was wearing and replied, "Yeah, I was... shorter." And podgy, I thought, and just as geeky as me. I asked the obligatory, "So what are you up to?" to which he replied, "This and that. A bit of modelling and acting."

Anyone else saying that would have been mentally dismissed as a poser and probably stretching the truth, but I let him off.

After quietly admitting that I'm now an evil tax lady, we said our goodbyes, and wished each other happy Christmas. And Andrea said, "Wow, who was that?" so I explained. And she expressed an interest, so I said please don't go trampling on my delicate teen years, they're fractured enough as it is. So she said his mate wasn't bad either, but by then they'd disappeared.

And when I got back for the podcast, it didn't work. So it never got recorded. But I gave John his Christmas presents, so that was OK. Rose tinted specs (so proud of finding them), earplugs, a poster of a fluffy cat hugging a teddy bear, a talking Cyberman head on a keyring, and the real present - a book. The silly presents were to help him cope with his pent-up frustration at the world.

The weekend was spent vegging. Then Christmas Eve I got Euan back - he'd been at Nana Su's since the concert because Karl, Jane, and her three kids had come to visit and he'd had an early Christmas.

We stayed at Sylvia's. Euan was very good. All the Christmas stuff went well - my first year doing a proper stocking because Euan's old enough to be aware now. He came through to Steve's room early, and snuggled up to me because he was chilly. So I asked him if Father Christmas had been. He said he didn't know. Steve asked him if his stocking was empty or full. He said he didn't know, but went to check. He came running back saying, "Mummy, he's been! There's presents! It's Santa!" which was my cue to follow him through and help him open them. We stayed in his room, playing with the balloon animal kit he'd been given. OK, so I was the one playing, but who's quibbling as long as it kept Euan quiet? We made a dog, an elephant and a swan. Although the first two were a bit deformed. The swan was good though, very elegant.

We had breakfast. I had a shower. We got dressed. Then the rest of the house began to stir, and we all went downstairs to open the presents under the tree. Great fun. Steve spent the whole day in the kitchen doing his chef thing, with Colin as his assistant. Euan and I just heard the instructions drifting through the serving hatch as we played with his new Thomas the Tank Engine set and read the Gruffalo books.

The meal was delicious. Euan ate only potatoes, but since there were several varieties on offer at least he didn't have a dull meal. And he liked the cranberry sauce: "Jam," apparently. I ate until I was nearly at exploding point, which is the whole idea with Christmas dinner.

Then Steve dozed through the Hogfather - just as well, I've been a Pratchett fan for years, and would have been telling him extra stuff he didn't want to know about how come Susan is Death's granddaughter. I put Euan to bed, and Steve and I went round to Clegg & Julie's across the road for some TV then Who Wants to be a Millionnaire on the DVD, which I liked because I'm a geek who enjoys tests. Then we watched Hostel, which was entertainingly gruesome up until the point it broke, leaving us all on the edges of our seats. I'll watch the rest one day.

Boxing Day was spent mooching then we went to Mum's for more presents and some food. Euan had by now had about a week of present-opening. Bliss.

He went to Nana Su again for a couple of days, so Steve and I booked into a nice hotel in Liverpool. Why? Well, we would have gone for a cosy country cottage somewhere and taken bagfuls of leftover food to survive on, but they're not very online-friendly or last-minute. So the "Do not disturb" sign was used instead, Steve took his XBox360 and new games, to play on the nice flat TV, and I had so many relaxing baths I think my skin has only just unshrivelled. It was great to be able to shut off from everything for a couple of nights. We ate a late cooked breakfast in the afternoons, and ate at restaurants both nights - nothing too extravagant, just a smidge of being looked after. Managed to do some shopping too.

Euan was back for New Year, which we spent with Danny and Kerrie. Euan went to sleep around 9.30, just before a load more people turned up, luckily. He slept straight through a party in full swing, a police helicopter and numerous fireworks, so I didn't try waking him up for midnight. The boys mostly played on Danny's Wii, whilst Kerrie organised board games. A very nice evening, which came to an end at the rather civilised time of 3am.

Then back to work last week. Ick. But I've bought a new TV this week, which has cheered me up no end. And since I'm now on the Tax Credit team full time, it's a lot easier to work out what I'm supposed to be doing. They've turned down my request for a reduction in hours for a third time, still not enough staff, and not likely to get more staff because our jobs are going.

So I don't really know what to do about that. I really can't cope with the very restrictive hours of school, nursery and work combined. I could drop Euan off an hour earlier if I took him to nursery first, but they would then charge me £2 a day for the drop-off at school. And I already inflict a nine-hour day on him. Increase it to ten hours some days just so mummy has time to go shopping and feed us? This is not how it should have to be. I just want more time at home with him. I get him up, I rush him to school, I don't see him until 6pm, we walk home (fun), I feed him (fun or fight depending on his mood), then bath if he looks grubby, and bed, but I always read him a story.

And last night he chewed an Ibuprofen tablet and spat it out (he's fine, I phoned NHS Direct), and tonight he stuffed the toilet absolutely full of paper. And the look in his eyes seems to say, "I know it's probably naughty, but look how repentant I am." And both times he's been all hugs and apologies. And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it's when he's gone to bed, he gets up and does naughty stuff, so maybe he's doing things he knows will get me to go back upstairs, sort it out, and then tuck him in and kiss him goodnight once more.

Or maybe he's just being three.

Oh, and at the start of December I put in a court claim against Abbey, which they ignored for a while, then acknowledged (extending their deadline), then put in a defence for. But they have also offered me about half the amount I'm claiming for. So maybe the defence is just hot air and bluster, designed to scare me with legal speak and the offer of money is the easy option. Should I go for the hard option and reject their offer, choosing to go for the whole lot in court? I don't exactly relish the prospect, but the fact that they're offering me anything at all isn't bad.

Decisions, decisions...