Today, for the first time in ages, everyone's well, everyone went back to work and school, and I bumbled about doing normal housewifey stuff, then went back to my old gym for a workout in the afternoon, did my hair, picked up kids and went home and cooked some roast pork for the family.

It's a shame I haven't found space to blog these last few months, because only then would you realise what a complete breath of fresh air that is after all the stress and illnesses of the last 2 months.

In a nutshell, since the beginning of October:

- my hubby has been on a special project working 60 hour weeks minimum plus weekends, such that I've been essentially a single mother.

- when he comes home he is tired grumpy and miserable, so we have had a succession of stupid little rows

- my stepfather took ill and died suddenly, so I had to pull my daughter out of school and go and sort my mum out for a few weeks (I'm the only child). That was my first brush with close family bereavement and with organising a funeral and it's really taken its toll.

- Every one of us has had stomach flu over the month of November - some of us have had it 2 or 3 times.

- For the last 2 weeks the children have had a lovely cough, and last night was the first unbroken night's sleep in ages.

On top of this I've been struggling to finish the last few bits of written work for my Personal Trainer and Nutrition course and I'm also trying to potty train my son, with hit and miss results.

Strangely enough my diet has gone to heck and I haven't managed to get to the gym much. I wonder why?

looking back over my blog, November was a completely crap month last year as well. Maybe I'll take my daughter's advice and hibernate from when the clocks go back until Christmas. SOunds good to me....

This is scary after 5 years of being a stay at home mum. I picked up my local paper, saw a job that I could do, and decided , on a whim to apply for it. I just thought that maybe I could do a few hours paid work and treat myself to a cleaner.

I was invited to a 10-minute interview, offered the job on the spot and I start next Wednesday. This is a bit of a turnaround for the girl who proudly proclaimed herself 'retired' and vowed never to set foot in an office again, but there you go. Follow your instincts, I say....

So today I had various cleaning firms come round to look at my house.

Most of them were in the same ballpark - most would do as much or as little as I wanted with or without ironing etc. and were happy to make the specification and frequency of the cleaning fit my budget, and find someone to come at the hours I specified.

However, one of the agencies was so far removed from reality that I nearly laughed in his face and spat my coffee at him.

I should have guessed from his tone on the phone - "we don't quote an hourly rate - we come and do an inspection of the property then give a total quote, based on what we anticipate is needed to clean the house to our specifications". It's a shame for him he doesn't quote an hourly rate - I could have saved him a journey.

After looking at my wreck of a house (with 2 sick children running around causing havoc), he pronounced that I would need somewhere between 5-6 man hours per week minimum which would cost me (sit down if you're not already)

£98 PER WEEK

I'm only going to work 2 hours a week, and it would have to be a special job to finance that sort of cleaning. Plus the going rate for this area, based on what I've seen from all the others is about £10 per hour - so wrong on all counts...

Then just as I was picking myself off the floor came the funniest bit of all "Of course we start with a detailed first clean - in order to get the house up to our standards so that we can then maintain it for you. We would need a team of 3 people in for a day - cost £390."

I could if I choose be insulted by that - but I don't suppose he meant that my house was particularly disgusting - I imagine all his houses get a similar prognosis. I can't believe there are people out there willing to part with that amount of money for house cleaning.

Just to report, for anyone who's looking, that Menomama touched down safely this morning, spent the day eating and drinking, and is already safely on her way to blogmeet no.2.

She's every bit the same in real life as in her blog. I wish I could come on round with her and meet you all - I think she's really brave and I don't know where she gets her energy from.

Have lots of fun wherever you meet her. She's inspired me to get back on here - I want to hear about the rest of the blogmeets.

I can't believe I haven't managed to get here since February. Where does the time go. What on earth have I been doing with myself?

There's one simple answer which any blogmummies out there will understand perfectly well - my youngest son has hit the terrible twos and my daughter isn't old enough yet at 4 to understand how best to handle him (she's not quite out of the tantrum stage herself).

This means in practice that I have become the UN peacekeeping force in my own home - trying to encourage sharing, mutual respect and discipline. Gone are my happy hours where I could put one down for his afternoon nap, leave the other in front of the telly and sneak up for a blissful hour talking to you guys.

Now daytime sleep has been cast aside along with all manner of baby toys. She wants to play with his cars, he wants to play with her dolls - they both want control of the TV remote and as much mummy attention as they can wangle with good bad or ugly behaviour.

On top of all this my studies are mounting up. I'm really amazed that Personal trainers are expected to write so much stuff before they qualify. I must have been going to the wrong gyms as I've barely met a literate one yet. So when I do come to the computer, it's no longer a place of sanctuary and refuge, but instead a place of toil and trouble.

Thank you to my blogfriends who have stood by me through my prolonged absences. I notice I've lost a few - only natural I suppose. Most of you won't notice me lurking about but lurk I do, and I have thrown in the occasional comment here and there. I'm hoping I'll get back to regular commenting soon, but it might have to wait util DS starts nursery in September.

If I can get him potty trained. And that will be a whole new blog subject......

My daughter has a little friend who was born within a few minutes of her on 17th Feb 2003. So I got toghetehrr with this lad's mum and we arranged that I would organise her party on Saturday and she would do his on Sunday (we did vaguely consider a joint party, but given that each of them go to 2 separate nurseries, only one in common, so the total potential invitees were nearly 80, we decided we couldn't handle it!)

So this weekend has been a weekend of 4 year olds, chasing each other round soft play areas, high on all manner of processed food and pure childhood enjoyment.

Kinda cute. But kinda knackering too!

I can't believe I've been absent for over a month. Where did the time go?

Since then I've had 8 days of study, had my kitchen ripped out and remodeled and am slowly emerging from hibernation as Spring is starting to show its sleepy head in my garden.

The diet is on again, I'm back at the gym.

Apologies for leaving you so long my blogfriends - hopefully I'll get a bit more time to hang around again now.

My body has turned to jelly and my brain to mush. This happens to me every jANUARY. I personally think that humans were genetcally programmed to hibernate during January and somehow along the way we lost the habit.

I was back at the gym today with my long-suffering gym buddy. We slogged our way through the usual workout but both admitted that it had been really hard to get going today.

Even my son and daughter were off form - no symptoms of any recognisable illness, but tired, grumpy, irritable, clingy.....

My friend and I couldn't stay in the club for lunch as my son was so badly behaved we had to take him home. So we went home and pigged out on toasted samdwiches, cakes and biscuits, and did precisely nothing all afternoon.

Strangely enough I don't feel any better. Still grumpy and tired - and guilty to top it all.

The boiler has been ripped out and replaced. Thank goodness - above all this was the part I was dreading.

The engineer came on Tuesday and the work began. I took the children away to stay with friends on Tuesday night and have been staying out of the house as much as possible since then.

When I did have to be home, I lit our open fire and we huddled round in the living room. It wasn't a particularly cold week really, but I realise how dependent on heating I've become and what a softie I am, because I felt drained and miserable for the few hours that I had to endure it.

But the guy was quick and efficient and normal service was resumed on Friday lunchtime. Now I've just got to wait until the surveyor comes on Monday to find out exaclty how much of a nightmare the main kitchen fit is going to be.

Here I am back at the computer after a lovely break over Christmas. Happy New Year to all my blogfriends!

Had a lovely time over Christmas, saw a lot of family, played with my kids, drunk a bit but not too much, ate far too much of all the wrong kinds of stuff and did absolutely no exercise. Not much more to say really.

Thanks to all of you who have shared the latter half of 2006 with me - it's been great fun. Hopefully I'll be back a bit more regularly again now.

Today I've taken the tree and decorations down, because tomorrow I've got the first of four gangs of workmen arriving who are going to completely remodel my kitchen and replace my central heating system over the next six weeks.

Tomorrow I start with the boiler and central heating people, then I have the trashing of the old kitchen, tiling electricals and replastering. After that comes the kitchen fitters and finally there are the granite worktop fitters.

If I don't have some fodder to blog about during all this time I'll be well surprised. Right now I'm not sure whether to be excited or scared.

Couldn't think of any kind of witty, snappy title to my blog tonight.

One of my husband's aunts was killed in a car accident last night, aged 75. He's flying over to Ireland for the funeral tomorrow.

Even though I've only met the lady once or twice, i find that I am more touched than I expected by the news. It just brings it home how random death can be. My husband's father's family are notoriously healthy. There are nine of them - all children survived in the family and they are now aged 65 to 80, and all in good health. Remarkable. And now suddenly one is gone. Not to disease, but some random, tragic accident. I just can't get my head round it.

I'm also finding it a bit odd, how fast they've laid on the funeral. It's been fast tracked because of Christmas. I'm not even sure what I think the right length of time between death and funeral should be, but it seems to me that 48 hours is hardly long enough to gather the clans and get used to the fact that you are going to say a final goodbye to your loved one.

My husband is going tomorrow. He's lucky with a stay at home wife and a sympathetic employer he can just drop everything and fly off to Ireland at a moment's notice. His sister, deep in dentistry studies, is not able to get away.

Don't really know what if any point I am trying to make here. My brain is shocked, confused and very little in the way of coherent thought is coming out. I think I need to get some sleep...

We really kick started Christmas today.

Started off by going to Mass. Sang a few of my favourite carols and swapped cards with people. Watched Chicken Little on our new Christmas telly when we got home - we haven't had a working DVD player for nearly a year so my daughter was overjoyed.

Had a full roast chicken dinner with plenty of veg - we're not having turkey for Christmas this year so I guess that's the nearest we'll get to it.

Put the tree and room decorations up this afternoon. For the first time this year, my daughter was actually helpful and I enjoyed having her around while I decorated. She put some balls on the tree plus some of the home made decorations she had brought from nursery. One of my Christmas chores has become good fun family time - hurrah!

Bacon and sausage samdwiches for tea (you'll note that entries on the healthworx blog have stopped over the Christmas season). I nearly set fire to the kitchen as I was too busy listening to my daughter sing carols to her Grandma on the phone and forgot the sausages, but we ate the burnt remains anyway.

Then I know I'm supposed to be a Catholic now, but I was brought up in the Church of England, and Christmas just isn't Christmas for me without the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols. So I took my daughter over to the local CofE church tonight for theirs, which was absolutely lovely. The choir were excellent, I had a good rollicking sing of all my favourites, and my daughter enjoyed joining in with some and also holding her candle as the whole service was candlelit. She made very good friends with an old lady in the row behind us, who nearly cried when my daughter sang along perfectly to Silent Night. Then into the hall for mulled wine (squash for Anne-Sophie!) and a mince pie.

Now I'm really starting to feel festive. Roll on big dinners, too much booze, Queens speech, scrapping with the relatives and all things Christmas!

Well for all I don't like about my mother in law, I can't fault her generosity this Christmas. She came to visit our new house, listened when we said we needed a new (smaller) TV and has given us the money to buy one, as a Christmas/housewarming present.

We were going to wait until the January sales, but I'm afraid two days without the electronic babysitter (aka CBeebies) has me climbing the walls already, and I decided we couldn't survive till the end of Christmas. So off to the shops today, just to see what they had.

The shop was manic, woefully understaffed with new staff who didn't have a clue what they were doing. Even the managers were completely clueless. The place was heaving with customers, who were getting more and more frustrated with increasingly long waits. Small children (mine included alas) were tearing about, wrecking displays and causing havoc. Somewhere there was a karaoke machine being demonstrated, and the noise of kids singing Christmas carols at full blast could be heard throughout the store.

Still we braved it, and managed to hold our children more or less steady for just over an hour, while a very patient and calm salesman sorted out what we wanted, whilst fending off other customers left, right and centre. In the end we came out with two TVs (one for the living room, one for the spare room which will eventually be the gym)and a DVD player. Came home, dropped the tellys and went out to eat to celebrate.

Have just been watching edited highlights of my favourite DVDs for the first time in over a year. Yahoo!

So big, big thanks to Nana Anne for her generosity. I now declare that the Christmas season is well and truly open!

Somehow I thought this Christmas was going to be easy. From the moment I accepted the invitation to lunch at my sister's house on Christmas day and realised that I didn't have to worry at all about preparing food for the day, I've been coasting, somehow assuming that it would all get done.

Now sudddenly I've realised just how close everything is, and some things are just not going to get done in time at all.

I've put up my new nativity set in the window and the neighbours have all been commenting on how nice and tasteful it looks, which is lovely. But I was saving putting up the tree until we sold the large TV on ebay. The TV went today, and I was kind of assuming that I'd put up the tree sometime while my daughter was at nursery and my son was asleep. But she breaks up from nursery tomorrow and I haven't wrapped the kids' presents yet, so that will have to take priority.

And some of the presents aren't even bought yet. Too late to rely on the internet now, so that means that sometime next week I have to brave the shops with both my children. Even the thought of it is making me shiver.

Added to that and the few little projects that I set running in november are all coming together. I've had several people come round and quote me on my new kitchen and I've finally signed up for that. We had the chimney swept (for Santa Claus) and my husband has promised to get some firewood this weekend. I've found someone who will replace my boiler in the New Year and he's been round to do his survey. Plus we've had people putting insulation in our loft, raising the boards so that the thicker insulation will fit in there, and installing a loft ladder.

I've also started back at the gym - thankfully I'm feeling better at last, and attended two school nativity plays. I've taken my daughter to the doctors three times, my son once and myself twice. I'm in constant contact with my mum who is preparing her house for the return from hospital of my stepfather. Don't know how that is going to go as he seems a lot weaker than when he went in, but I keep in daily contact and support her as best I can.

All in all December has been a very busy month. I'm very much looking forward to getting Christmas out of the way and making a fresh start in January. Who knows I might even get back to regular blogging. I miss you guys.

My daughter, aged 3 1/2 has decided in the last week that Brussels sprouts are her new most favourite food, and I can cook them for her evry day if I so wish. I have cooked them for her, several times in the last week, and she has wolfed them all down.

This is peculiar and somewhat spooky. Firstly because my daughter is a confirmed vegetable hater. She has been known to eat the odd bit of cucumber or tomato, and to swallow the occasional carrot if mum is sitting there watching and pleading, but hot green stuff? Never!

I say spooky though, because when I was little brussels sprouts were my first vegetable, and the only one I would contemplate for many years, and they still rank among my favourites. I very rarely cook them nowadays though, as my husband detests them - even the smell of them cooking, a view shared by most normal adults and children, I understand.

So I never thought to serve them to my daughter. Having failed with broccoli, peas and spinach, I decided not to put her through it. Until I got some in my organic vegebox last week and decided I had to have some myself and to give the kids a taster. I expected my son to eat them - he eats absolutely anything. But when my daughter wolfed them down too and demanded more I was truly amazed.

Seems like food preferences must have some kind of genetic link. Wonder what she'll make of a good rare steak washed down with half a pint of good red wine........?

My daughter, aged 3 1/2 has decided in the last week that Brussels sprouts are her new most favourite food, and I can cook them for her evry day if I so wish. I have cooked them for her, several times in the last week, and she has wolfed them all down.

This is peculiar and somewhat spooky. Firstly because my daughter is a confirmed vegetable hater. She has been known to eat the odd bit of cucumber or tomato, and to swallow the occasional carrot if mum is sitting there watching and pleading, but hot green stuff? Never!

I say spooky though, because when I was little brussels sprouts were my first vegetable, and the only one I would contemplate for many years, and they still rank among my favourites. I very rarely cook them nowadays though, as my husband detests them - even the smell of them cooking, a view shared by most normal adults and children, I understand.

So I never thought to serve them to my daughter. Having failed with broccoli, peas and spinach, I decided not to put her through it. Until I got some in my organic vegebox last week and decided I had to have some myself and to give the kids a taster. I expected my son to eat them - he eats absolutely anything. But when my daughter wolfed them down too and demanded more I was truly amazed.

Seems like food preferences must have some kind of genetic link. Wonder what she'll make of a good rare steak washed down with half a pint of good red wine........?

Well I've finally surfaced at the end of my whirlwind week for family duties. We entertained father in law last weekend, and I went down to see mum on Sunday as reported. Wednesday we met my mum in London and went on the London Eye, Thursday we picked MIL up from the airport and took her to see SIL, and today we've seen MIL and SIL again (it's my hubby's birthday), plus had my son's 2nd birthday party this afternoon with 15 children aged 1-8, their parents my sister and some of my very best friends.

It's no wonder I've not been posting much recently. At the end of each day I'm just too exhausted. At least my bugs are finally clearing up - thank heavens for modern medicine.

The party was great and a great destresser for me - I love watching little kids running about having fun. We had a great big venue, lots of music, balloons and plenty of unhealthy food and sugary drink. Everyone had a whale of a time - including my son who ignored all his guests pointedly the whole time. While they played pass the parcel and I set up the food tables he wandered over to me and helped himself to his food. When everyone else came for food he toddled off and went to play with the toy cars. The perfect host!

We got home afterwards with a few friends who stayed until about 5.30. After they'd gone my little boy slipped off upstairs to play in his room as he often does, but I found him fast asleep on the landing at 6pm. Poor little love!

That's me done for family socialising now. All I have to do is coast downhill to Christmas, thank heavens!