I'm having a productive lunchtime. I've booked the car in for its MOT, the boiler in for a service, and Tom has called the bank about his debit card randomly not working since his account became our joint account.

Our boiler has been causing me grief lately. It keeps turning off when the heating is on, and when it does that it's very difficult to get it going again. It started doing it occassionally but last night the heating was barely on for 10 minutes before it started playing up, and the house got really cold! Until we get our cavity wall insulation (Tuesday!) the house loses heat quite quickly, and I was sitting there under a blanket shivering, which is unusual for me because I normally quite like the cold.

Right now though I have a stonking headache. I took some paracetamol and that didn't seem to help, so I was forced to buy the overpriced packs of ibuprofen that the canteen sells in order to take some of that as well. My head is still throbbing, but at least I can use it as an excuse to leave work a little early.

Oh, and I keep meaning to say - good luck to everyone doing Nanowrimo! Maybe one of these years I'll do it again and actually write something passing for decent rather than my last rather embaressing efforts.

Is it too early to be using this icon? Probably...

Tom's mum emailed to say everything has changed. Tom's sister, who was the one not wanting to come to ours for Christmas, now has to work Christmas day (boo!) so instead we are having Christmas a day early with his folks, then again the next day at our house with my family! It does kind of suck her having to work Christmas (and boxing day) but she'll get paid loads, and her boyfriend is working anyway since he's a chef so this way she gets to spend an early Christmas with him as well as her parents. Plus she'll get paid double time, which isn't bad considering she's employed by the NHS and only a band below Tom and I - the band I was employed at two years ago.

I'm very excited about this! It means two Christmas dinners back to back, which may be tough on the old digestive system, but I'll cope somehow (probably go for a Christmas day cycle or something). It means we get to have a wonderful cosy house all decorated and full of all the people I love, and I get to cook for them all it's going to be wonderful!

Plus my parents and Tom's parents are coming to see The Mikado! I haven't convinced my brothers to come yet (they went strangely quiet when I asked them!), but may still work on Tom's sister and boyfriend, and maybe Tom's aunt and cousins.

Woop!