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.