I'm pleased to report that as of this morning, Amelie is able to suck her right thumb again. It's the first time she's managed to stick her favourite digit in her mouth since I took her to Lidl on Wednesday, which personally I think is the real reason she cried so much. The notion that she was in some kind of physical pain was just an idea dreamt up by Lisa to make me feel guilty. And to cover up her own guilt that she's never taken Amelie out to buy chocolate seashells for me.

But with our daughter in rehab at her Grandma's house yesterday (which was arranged before we knew she wasn't going to have the use of all her limbs), it gave me the chance to try our new hoover. I bought the one on the left on Monday, but I hadn't had a chance to test it out because Amelie doesn't like the sound of vacuum cleaners. She gets that from her mother. Our old one had always been too heavy for Lisa to lift, and despite my protestations that a month's gym membership to build up her muscles would be cheaper than buying a new one, I was eventually persuaded to invest in another model.

And I'm very glad I did. Our new Bissell Powerforce sucks big time. But in a good way. Judging by the amount of dust it picked up yesterday morning, I don't think our old vacuum cleaner was doing anything apart from making a lot of noise and giving me a cardiovascular workout. Our carpet looks brand new. Apart from the orange baby food stains.

So whilst in the mood for replacing faulty equipment, we drove over to Halfords yesterday afternoon to get a new headlight bulb for my car. My parents noticed that it wasn't working when we left there on Wednesday night, which isn't the kind of news you want at 11pm when you've spent half the day in A & E. Damn that black cat keyring.

Our one mile journey to Halfords felt a bit like taking part in the Wacky Races. EDF Energy were carrying out some "investment" (their word, not mine) in Kemptown yesterday. As a result, we had a total of three power cuts, and a lot of houses nearby had no electricity for six hours. But most entertaining of all was that the traffic lights were out at the bottom of Edward Street. We arrived there to find that we somehow had to fight our way onto the Old Steine as one of six lanes of traffic heading in four different directions, each refusing to give way to the other five. It made driving around the Arc de Triomphe look like a jaunt around an industrial estate on a Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, we went home a different way.

On the subject of travel chaos, Big Sis was supposed to be flying out to America this morning, but she's been thwarted by the volcanic cloud from Iceland. Personally I blame Kerry Katona. Sis is due to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of the century in Louisiana next week, so she's not a happy bunny. Frankly she's more ashen than the cloud. Although if she really wants to know suffering, she should try setting the time on all her electric clocks three times in one day. That's what I call soul-destroying.

And talking of soul-destroying activities, I spent part of this morning in the hospital library trying to make some progress on my City & Guilds Diploma in Retinal Screening. It's a bit like wading through treacle, only slower and less sweet. Admittedly I'm on annual leave at the moment, and shouldn't really be thinking about it, but I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never get it done if I stick to my allocated study periods. We're given two half-days a month, totalling 7½ hours, but each of the eight units I have to complete has a guideline number of hours I should spend on it. And they add up to 310 hours. Or about three and a half years. Roll on 2014.