I'm beginning to wonder if it might be possible to make a living from photography without going any further than my living room balcony...


I could just pop my head out of the window every morning and let the photogenic subjects come to me.

But moving on from the sun to my daughter, Amelie returned home to us yesterday, bringing with her half a tin of Dulux and a roller. Since doing up the flat eighteen months ago, we've been storing the leftover paint at the headquarters of the decorating firm we employed, which just happens to be based in my parents' garage. So we asked Am to collect some supplies on her way back, in the hope of repairing the damage done by my over-enthusiastic mould cleaning on Saturday.

When I got home from work yesterday, she came running down the hallway to greet me, and the first words out of her mouth were: "Daddy! Can I help you paint the wall with a roller?!"

So I picked her up, gave her a hug, and said "Of course you can, darling!"

The look which appeared on Lisa's face is hard to describe, but I'd place it somewhere between horror, disbelief, and major panic that she might have married a lunatic.

Admittedly, the idea of handing your three-year-old a fully-loaded paint roller, and letting her loose within two feet of a cream-coloured sofa, might seem like the height of lunacy, but there was method in my madness: I knew it would make a good blog post.

As it transpired, Lisa's fears were entirely unfounded. I gave Amelie a thorough talking to before we started, explaining the finer points of interior design and the consequences of getting paint on my CD collection, and this was the result...


She's like a cross between Michelangelo and Rolf Harris. But with no clothes and more talent. I might let her do the whole flat.

It goes without saying that the main advantage of being without Amelie for a couple of days was the opportunity it gave us to rid the flat of fungus, wash the fruit juice from the furniture, and take the piss out of the carpets. But in addition to catching up on the housework, our child-free weekend meant that I was able to get out of the flat for a few hours yesterday afternoon and spend some time with another woman. And what a woman. Frankly she made Lisa look like Mrs Mouse in a burkha.

We actually went to see The Iron Lady...

That's not her on the left. That's the film I would have chosen to see. Sadly, however, despite being a sci-fi blockbuster full of aliens, explosions and all-action adventure, Lisa was put off by the fact that it has an average rating of 11% on Rotten Tomatoes and has been universally panned by the critics. So we rejected the 3D in favour of something more one-dimensional.

We were actually torn between Thatcher and 'Shame'. Not only do they sound pretty similar, but they're written by the same person, so it probably didn't make much difference. In the end, Maggie won over the sex addicts, and we opted for a blue movie of a more Conservative kind.

The last film we went to see was 'The King's Speech' on our honeymoon last March, so we're keeping up our average of one cinema visit every year since Amelie was born. I might be tempted to break that record in 2012 though, because one of the trailers we saw yesterday was for a film adaptation of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close', a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's a well known fact that I haven't read a book since 1996, but I do spend a lot of time buying rubbish in charity shops, and I actually picked that up on audiobook for £1 about six months ago, and listened to it on my way to and from work. The New York Press called it 'Extremely Cloying and Incredibly False', but personally I thought it was excellent. So I'm looking forward to seeing that ruined on film.

As for 'The Iron Lady', I must admit I was disappointed. The film-makers appeared to have rejected the notion of either a political biopic or a personal portrait, and instead gone down the confused pensioner route. It was basically ninety minutes of Meryl Streep sitting around in a bedroom. Lisa felt that the point of it all was to show that even the most powerful of people eventually become helpless old codgers, but personally I felt she gave the makers too much credit. I just don't think they knew what they wanted to do, so they ended up doing nothing.

The result was a very frustrating film. Every time it touched on a major issue like the Falklands War or the miners' strike, it sparked instantly into life, only to die moments later by leaving the interesting subject matter completely unexplored, and returning to Maggie in her dressing gown. It barely scratched the surface of her career, and gave no insight into her private life. I really wasn't sure what the point of it all was. And as for the last scene with the teacup, I felt like throwing one at the screen.

That said, I thought Meryl Streep was very good, and it contained one set of lines worth quoting:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become your character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

It's just a shame they weren't written by Margaret Thatcher or the author of the film.

One of the toughest things you can face as a married man is the sight of another bloke with his arm around your missus...


I feel like Rhodri Giggs. But with less chance of selling my story to The Sun. She's clearly got love in her eyes. And a doily on her head. But let's face it, with a suit like that, he's clearly going to turn a few heads. And stomachs.

The worst part is that I always thought Lisa was the kind of girl who stayed in at the weekends, playing Scrabble with her Mum...


Although with curtains like that, you'd probably want to get out of the house quite a bit.

Anyhoo, I successfully scanned sixty-seven - yes, sixty-seven - old photos last night, before adjusting them, cropping them, and uploading them all to Photobox. But if you think that must have taken ages, you'd be wrong. I was asleep by 1am. Well, a quarter past.

Fortunately I didn't have to be up this morning, as my parents have kindly run off with Amelie this weekend to give us a chance to relax, unwind, and get the Ribena stains out of the sofa. I'm sitting here surrounded by ten naked cushions and the gentle hum of the tumble-dryer finishing off our dry-clean-only sofa covers on a very high heat.

It's been a day of discovery, because in addition to testing whether our cushion covers can survive a spin cycle, I also found a mould farm down the back of the sofa. Obviously we're no strangers to fungus, and there are strong rumours that the caravan city outside is linked to the council's plans to re-render the exterior of the block in an effort to solve the damp problem, but this was still a momentous discovery, because whilst we've had mould in both bedrooms and the bathroom, we've never before lived with it in the lounge.

Needless to say, black mould on your mauve walls is not a desirable look, so I successfully removed it all this afternoon. And replaced it with some attractive pale turquoise patches. It seems that despite using the same brand of mould cleaner in both bedrooms without the slightest hint of a problem, the paint on the living room wall has reacted like I've thrown a bucket of bleach at it, and now looks like a piece of modern art.

I'm in good company though, because whilst I've been redecorating the living room in two-tone pastels, Lisa's been experimenting with a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art hair dye which guarantees to be 100% drip-free. She's been waltzing around the flat with a black cape on, looking like Michael Keaton in Batman. But with more confidence, and much darker hair. The results are pretty spectacular. In fact her hair looks so good, she's decided to go out tonight. Just as soon as she's finished cleaning all the drips off the computer chair, carpet and my bedside cabinet.

I said to Lisa this evening, "It's Friday the 13th today. Have you had any bad luck?"

She replied, "No more than usual".

So on that positive note, it's my mother-in-law's birthday in two weeks time. Assuming she lives that long. Lisa and I are spending the weekend sorting through old photos to scan, upload, and turn into a professionally printed photo-book to present her with on the day. Ideally, we're looking for pictures of the lady herself, but personally I'm more distracted by her daughter...


That's my wife on the left, aged about eight. Which is surprising, as I didn't think cameras had been invented back then. We don't know who the stunner on the right is, but I'm sensing she's not a relation.

On the subject of things which looked good in the seventies, my Dad passed on the news this week that the Wish Tower in Eastbourne is set to be demolished. The council has been considering its future for a while now, but after a slight breeze took the roof off in December, they've decided to knock the whole thing down and start again.

Rumours that this hard-hitting exposé played a major role in the council's decision have yet to be confirmed, but suffice it to say that the BBC's sub-heading of 'Suffering and Fortitude' is more apt than they realise.

On balance, I think I prefer today's sunrise...


It looks a bit like the German flag has finally been raised over England, but apart from that, I like it.

I was working in Brighton yesterday, so I had the pleasure of taking Amelie to and from nursery for the first time. It was a bit like escorting a prisoner on day release, but without the time off for good behaviour. Dropping her off wasn't too much of a problem - the only difficulty I had was getting her to pause long enough to say goodbye before she ran off to play - but picking her up was a different story.

With the ever present threat of paedophiles lurking on every street corner, and statistics showing that at any given time there are upwards of ninety-three child molesters, violent abductors and kiddy-fiddlers within a ten-metre radius of where you're standing, security at the nursery is naturally tight. Getting Amelie out of there was like springing Charles Manson from a maximum security prison.

When I dropped her off, they were happy to take the girl off my hands without a fuss, but returning as a single unaccompanied man clearly put me on the danger list for the axis of evil. Having rung the doorbell outside and got no response whatsoever, I was met by another parent on her way out. I told her they weren't answering my calls, and she informed me that there's a video camera hidden in the doorbell, and they're probably studying me as we speak and deciding I fit the profile of a paedophile. Those weren't her exact words, but I knew what she meant.

Undeterred, I snuck through the door as she left, only to be confronted by another locked door with a keypad. Lisa had given me the code that morning, but I'd burnt it after reading, and committed it to my unfailing memory. So naturally by 5pm I'd forgotten it. As luck would have it, another parent arrived, refused to give me the code, and forced me to make a second daring entry attempt by piggy-backing her through the door. Not literally.

By the time I'd made it through a bolted gate, down the corridor and through another closed door to the pre-school room, I felt like I was on an episode of Prison Break. Frankly if Bin Laden had set up home there, he'd still be alive now.

Fortunately, once there, I was greeted by a happy little three-year-old who was very pleased to see me. Not Amelie, obviously, but a little boy who came running up to me, smiling, and said "I showed Amelie how to wash her hands today!". I didn't tell him that's more than I've ever done.

While my own daughter completely ignored me, he then said "This is for you..."

... and handed me the drawing on the left. It was like being passed a note by a lifer at visiting time. Either it's a coded message he wanted me to get out to his loved ones, or it's a picture of a llama lying down. I'm not sure which. But either way, I was grateful. He was the only person who acted like he wanted me to be there.

In the end, I had to virtually drag Amelie out of there by her wrists. There was a quiet beeping as we left, which I think was the sound of the staff phoning social services. Unfortunately she appears to have brought something home with her. She was up in the night, barking like a seal and telling us her throat hurts. So we need to keep that quiet. If they discover she's walked out with a cough, they might try to charge us extra.

This was the view from our balcony at seven-thirty this morning...


Believe it or not, I haven't tinkered with that photo at all. Those were the exact colours on display as the sun came up over Brighton today. Obviously I'd rather have been looking at the inside of my eyelids at that time in the morning, but the sunrise came a close second.

Having returned home from our winter retreat in St Leonards the Sunday before last, and carried eight bags of Amelie's presents up from the car, I decided to spend the Bank Holiday Monday sorting out her toys. In addition to cramming her wardrobe so full of stuff that no one's ever going to find Narnia, my main masterstroke was to gather together all of the various cuddly toys that she likes to take to bed, and place them in a handy red basket by the window, so that instead of wasting five minutes every night running around the flat looking for the specific one she wants, she can simply choose one from the basket and hop into bed.

It was a plan with no drawbacks. At least I thought so, until this morning...


That was the scene which greeted me when I opened her bedroom door at 7:30am. It's like she's been looting at Toys R Us. On the bright side, however, she can no longer see her Peppa Pig duvet, which according to the Daily Telegraph is a good thing.

The only toy not visible in that picture is her cuddly Gruffalo, so here's another photo...

To be honest, it's not really visible in that one either. But she is holding it in her left hand.

I took Amelie out for a walk after work last night, and she insisted on taking the Gruffalo with us to protect her from flies, bees and giants. (No, me neither). I'd intended just to stroll down to the seafront and then head straight back, but unfortunately when we got there, she spotted a number of evening joggers, and before I knew it, she was sprinting towards the pier like Anthony Worrall Thompson through the checkouts at Tesco. By the time I caught up with her, we were close to both the Brighton Wheel and a heart attack.

But in addition to an extreme cardiovascular workout, Amelie also provided me with a smile. And made a total stranger laugh. She has a habit at the moment of coming out with creative new descriptions for everyday things. Only the other day, she told me over dinner that her fizzy pop was wonderbubble, and her runner beans vegelicious. Which is not only a new word, but a surprising sentiment for a three-year-old.

So last night we were walking down Eaton Place, past Patsy Palmer's house, when a man came out of a side street with a dog on a lead. There was no traffic, and the night was quiet, but as the man crossed the road in front of us, Amelie broke the silence by announcing with great gusto, and in a very loud voice, "That dog is hairy-fantastic!".

As shaggy dog stories go, it was a little on the short side, but the owner walked off in hysterics.

I was invited to a meeting at work this morning to discuss the creation of a new department website. I've been asked to rewrite the text to make it all a bit more "friendly". So I'll be using the word 'darling' a lot, and finding some photos of come-to-bed eyes.

Obviously my ability to string a sentence together is one thing, but to be honest, I think the main factor which makes me the go-to guy for website production is my ability to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world's great Olympians at the top of the Google search rankings. No, really.

As mentioned here previously, if you enter the words 'Robin Cousins' into Google, you get this...


It's a photo of me. And some other bloke.

It's a well documented fact that I'm essentially a gay icon in the world of figure skating. Although I manage to keep my head down for most of the year. So I was particularly pleased to see the new series of 'Dancing on Ice' begin on ITV1 last night. When I say 'see', I don't mean that I watched it. I'm not an idiot. But I did keep a close eye on my blog stats...


The spike in November was when Big Sis linked to this post on Facebook, and the world turned up to stare in open-mouthed wonder at her acting. But frankly, Cousins can trump sisters any day of the week. I had enough visitors yesterday to knock Sis into a cocked hat. I'd like to think a lot of them were reading about the framing of Madge and Stella, but the fact is that most were after a bird's eye view of Robin. I really need to start selling merchandise before next week's episode.

Amelie told me yesterday that she'd like Chloe to have lots of little white kittens. I told her that's unlikely to happen, so naturally she asked me why. With hindsight, I probably should have just pointed out that Chloe's fifteen, and the cat equivalent of Barbara Cartland. Except that her ivory tower's a council block. Unfortunately I was a bit more honest. So I'm now being pestered to buy a boy cat.

That was just one of the charming conversations we had yesterday while Lisa was out at the AA convention. Frankly it was more tiring than going to work. But I did enjoy the moment when Amelie discovered that I'd neatly placed two of her books inside the book stack table, at which point she turned to me and said "Daddy, you're a genius!". At least she got something right.

On the subject of books and intellectual decisions, I bought a classic work of poetry on Friday. And what's more, I've read it. Although some of the pages were missing. I was working in Crawley, so naturally I found myself in the Save the Children charity shop at lunchtime, where they were having a half-price January sale. I was browsing the bric-a-brac, and I came across this...


If that looks like the inside page of a poetry book, it's because it is. Unfortunately the rest of the book wasn't attached. Someone had taken the first two pages of a book called 'Poems of Shelley', personally inscribed to Stella with a heartfelt Christmas message from Madge and Janine (Jonnie? Jannice?), and then framed it. And 'Save the Children' were selling it for 50p. Reduced to 25p in the sale.

I spent so long puzzling over this, I almost made myself late back to work, so in the end I decided it was worth spending 25p on the mystery, and bought it.

The point is this: if I were Stella, and Madge had given me a work of poetry for Christmas, I would certainly be inclined to chuck most of the book in the bin. Particularly as Madge clearly doesn't like me enough to put 'Dear', 'Love', or spell the word 'Christmas'. I'm not sure I'd have bothered to keep the inscription, and I certainly wouldn't have spent money on a frame, but other than that, it makes sense.

However, that can't be what happened. Above the inky words of her Madgesty is the date 10/06 and the price £1.00, both written in pencil. Now, if Madge is half the woman I think she is, there's no way she'd have inscribed a book to Stella without removing the price first. She's economical with her words, but she doesn't want to look like a cheapskate.

So it wasn't Stella who framed it. It was Stella who sold it. I'm liking her more and more. In fact, I'd buy Stella a beer if I met her. So Stella clearly received the book prior to 2006, put up with it for at least six months, and then chucked it out in the summer. It must have been sold as a book for a pound (a bargain, because it's £4.50 here), at which point the person who bought it decided that the poems of Shelley were rubbish, but the inscription was worth framing. The question is, why?.

Presumably Madge meant nothing to them, and if they thought it was valuable, they wouldn't have ripped it out of the book. Or given it away to charity and let an idiot buy it for 25p. It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma. I suggested to Lisa that we hang it on the living room wall as a conversation piece, but she wasn't keen. Apparently we talk enough rubbish without putting junk on the wall.

At the end of January last year, we met up with our old friends Crash & Donna (or Chris & Donald, as Amelie likes to call them), and went out for breakfast in Brighton. Here's a photo of us all together...


We look like one of the line-ups from the Identity Parade round on 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks'. At least I thought we did, until last night's edition on BBC2...


Number five definitely looks the part, but the others barely resemble us at all. Although I look a bit like number four.

Still, it comes to something when one of your friends is being introduced to Vic Reeves by a Natural Born Killer, using the words "C U next Tuesday". Things like that usually only happen in my dreams.

While I was in Haywards Heath yesterday, hearing about Tufty getting hammered, Brighton Council were busy doing some DIY of their own. I came home from work last night to find that in the space of a few hours, they'd built four portacabins on the grass outside our flat...


For a moment, I thought we had gypsies. As mere residents, we obviously haven't been told what's going on, but the council came back today and erected a fifth one, before digging a hole and connecting it up to the electricity supply. So I think they're re-homing asylum seekers. Or preparing for a Hollywood film. It's like having a row of Winnebagos parked outside.

That wasn't the only momentous thing which happened yesterday though. It was also Amelie's first ever day at nursery. And needless to say, there were tears. Not when she got there, but when she had to go home. It was only an hour-long settling-in session, but they had a water play area with ponies, which is pretty much everything Amelie wants in life. Frankly she was in hog heaven, and Lisa could barely drag her out of there.

They returned today for settling-in session number two, and Amelie's already made a best friend called Mandy. A lot of toddlers can be selfish with their toys, but apparently Mandy came and she gave without taking.

Unfortunately, the shine's been taken off the situation entirely by the news we received this morning, which is that despite having registered Amelie solely for the fifteen free hours a week she's entitled to by law (in fact, she'll only be there for twelve), the nursery's going to charge us almost fifty pounds a month anyway. It seems that the hours you do are irrelevant, and nobody gets away without paying. As Lisa was told this morning "We'd go out of business if everyone just had the free hours and paid nothing".

In addition, the government entitlement is for 15 hours of free nursery education for 38 weeks of the year (to tie-in with school term times), so we assumed we'd just keep her at home in the holidays. Apparently not. The nursery have said she'll lose her place if she doesn't attend throughout August. And if she attends throughout August, we'll be paying the full fees.

So we're not very happy. Especially as Amelie won a place there six months ago, and they've waited until she's started, fallen in love with the place, and made a new friend, before telling us it's going to cost us big time. Naturally we're looking for someone to blame, and it appears we may have found him. It's all David Cameron's fault.

I was in Haywards Heath today, where I discovered a shop selling just about everything you could ever want in life...


The only thing they don't supply is top quality anecdotes, but as luck would have it, I picked up one of those at the St Catherine's Hospice Shop around the corner.

I was idly browsing the menswear section at lunchtime today, when the lady on the till asked her colleague if she'd had a nice Christmas. An innocuous question, you might think, but one which resulted in an answer so surprising that I actually loitered in the shop just to hear the end of the story.

Apparently the lady had been staying with friends for Christmas, and as she arrived home a few days ago, her neighbour came rushing out to inform her that whilst she'd been away, a squirrel had got into her house via the chimney and set off the burglar alarm. Fortunately the neighbour had a set of keys, and was able to go in and turn off the alarm, but the lady was naturally concerned that the squirrel might have caused a lot of damage, so she asked her neighbour how long it had been in there for.

The news was good. The whole thing had only happened that morning, the neighbour had gone straight in, and the squirrel had spent less than half an hour in the house. From that point on, however, the news took a turn for the worse.

The lady continued her story by posing this innocent question to her colleague:

"Now, if you were going to remove a squirrel from your neighbour's house, how would you do it?".

The colleague said she would open all the doors and try shooing it out. The lady herself suggested throwing a blanket over the creature, and scooping it up safely. Neither of those things had happened.

Instead, the neighbour had summoned "her gentleman friend" to deal with the situation in his own inimitable style. As the charity shop colleague put it, in a slightly alarmed voice, "Don't tell me he used a shotgun?"

"No," the lady said. "A hammer."

Apparently the gentleman friend had entered the neighbour's house armed with nothing but a carpentry set, and in an admirable feat of agility and lightning-fast reflexes, had succeeded in getting close enough to the squirrel to hit it on the head with a hammer.

Game over for Tufty, you might think. Sadly not. Despite being smashed in the skull with a piece of DIY equipment, the squirrel, which up until this point had caused no damage whatsoever, survived the blow, and immediately set off across the living room at high speed with blood spurting from its head like a fountain. The neighbour's squeeze took off in hot pursuit, and by the time the creature was cornered by the three piece suite, and a second, fatal blow delivered, there was a trail of blood on the carpet, and the wallpaper had been redecorated in red. Frankly a shotgun would have caused less damage.

Of course, when you've given new meaning to the phrase 'Hammer Horror' by creating an indoor sprinkler system out of a squirrel, turned your neighbour's house into a crime scene, and found yourself standing on the sofa with blood on your hands, you're naturally going to want to clear things up a little. And sure enough, the gentleman politely removed the corpse from the living room.

The charity shop colleague then asked the lady what he did with it. She rolled her eyes before answering:

"He left it on the lawn for the crows".

If I were her, I'd move house.

I've no idea what was going on with the weather in Brighton this morning, but walking down the hill past A&E at 8:30am was like trekking down a wind tunnel in a tsunami. I took this photo from our living room window before I left for work...


... and frankly it was no better on dry land. Not that there was any. I'd have driven the 400 metres to work, but I wasn't sure it was passable without a hovercraft. By the time I reached OPD, I was soaked through and could no longer feel my face. My first patient said it wasn't weather for the faint-hearted. I told her to forget the faint-hearted and spare a thought for the bald-headed. That's the last time I leave home without a hat.

I had an e-mail while we were away from this chap, suggesting that as the owner of MulledWhines.net, I might like to buy 'Whines.net' off him for five hundred bucks. It's a tempting offer, obviously, but not one I'm inclined to accept. Mainly because it turns my witty domain into one that just sounds like I'm moaning.

Intriguingly though, he states in the e-mail that "I am offering this domain name to several potential buyers over the next few days, and the first one to agree to buy it for $500 will get it". So I'm clearly not the only one with 'Whines' in my website address. Unless he's flogging it to the owner of Gripes.com.

On the subject of this blog, since redecorating at the weekend, I've changed the format of my archive listing (on the right, scroll down), and it's inadvertently revealed the surprising news that 2011 was my most prolific blogging year since I met Lisa. I'm clearly spending less time with her than ever before. I could get up now and go and join her on the sofa, but there's not really any great need. If I want to know how she's doing, I can just check her status on Facebook.

Looking at those figures, however, it's also apparent just what a bad year 2006 was. It was the year that Lisa needed me more than any other, and the time I felt least like blogging. I was watching a wise and worldly woman on TV the other night (it was Kerry Katona if you must know) and she said that alcohol is a harder habit to kick than heroin. I think she was pissed at the time. I've no idea if her words are true (I haven't given up either), but I do know that what Lisa's done over the past five years has been phenomenal.

It's the annual Brighton AA Convention next weekend, and this year Lisa will be attending, not only as someone with long term sobriety, but as the treasurer of a city centre meeting and, as of yesterday, the Chairperson of the International AA Public Information Committee. She's spreading sobering thoughts across the world.

After a year in which she lost the teeth she'd spent her life savings on, and then the baby she'd set her heart on, the fact that the above paragraph is still true, and hasn't all gone by the wayside, is both remarkable and admirable. She also has to cope with Amelie's bad behaviour, which is enough to turn anyone to drink.

Mind you, Amelie has a lot to cope with herself. She dreamt the night before last that she was being chased by a horde of snakes who were, and I quote, "licking my hair and making it knotty". Venomous snakes are bad enough, but when they start ruining your hair, you've got good reason to wake up screaming.

Anyhoo, 2011 has been a challenging year in many ways, but the manner in which my wife and daughter have come through it is a source of great pride to me, and I love them both loads. So while Amelie battles snakes in her sleep, I'm going to join Lisa on the sofa. We're catching up on our Christmas TV and doing 'The Big Fat Quiz of the Year'. Love her or not, she'll owe me money by the end of the night.

There's no better way to start the new year than with a vision of the Virgin Mary...

Or failing that, Amelie in a towel. She's not so much a vision as a sight.

But the good news is that as of two hours ago, the three of us have managed to get some clothes on and return safely through the flooded countryside of Sussex to our humble home in Brighton. And I'm pleased to say there are no police lines outside. Which is a marked improvement on last year.

2012 is set to be quite an exciting year for us. Assuming it lives up to the film. But sadly, despite doing no partying whatsoever, an afternoon spent packing up all of Amelie's Christmas presents has left me feeling drained and exhausted. By the time I'd loaded up the car with all her stuff, I felt like heading straight to the nearest car boot sale. Frankly she needs to get her own flat, fifteen years ahead of schedule, because I've no idea where we're putting it all.

We've had a very nice week though. We didn't make it far from the sofa, but it's all been very relaxing. I'm not back at work until Tuesday, but I'm already looking forward to my next week off at the end of February. I think we'll be choosing St Leonards for that holiday too.