Good morning!
Fuzzpig a belated "many happy returns" for yesterday! Hope you had a lovely day!
Having "elevenses" here currently as dh woke me up with a bacon butty at 4.30 am this morning as he headed off on this travels. 
He said he was "celebrating" the fact that we had HP sauce (a rare commodity here) .
DD delivered to school early for exams (tense week). Three down, seven to go. For what are simple end-of-term exams for 1st years, they appear to be a very "big deal" - take place in mahoosive exam hall - all pens/pencils etc in see-through plastic bag - different years seated next to each other with different language papers to avoid cheating - start at 8am and finish at 1.15pm (a challenge for dd who finds focusing for such a long period of time quite difficult) with only a 15 min break in between. Just another part of this endless cycle of reports, exams, reports, exams, reports.
DD has only been at this school since Sept and we will have received three reports by Christmas (very detailed ones too). The assessment is verging on the obsessive. I wouldn't say this to dd of course, but the thought of 7 more years of this seems rather daunting and oppressive. It's getting to the point where she has barely learnt something before she is assessed in it!
Anyway, rather glad of the fact that she is allowed to come home afterwards as she was wiped out yesterday when she got back. I'm cooking stacks of healthy food to keep her going! And they are apparently going on a trip to the theatre next week! Yay!
Rather a surreal day yesterday.
Morning spent wrestling with very unhappy dog at vets. Despite him being a small dog, it took three of us to hold him down on the table while vet delivered more injections, which gave rise to horrible whimpering and distress and attempted biting (which is not like him at all 
).
Early afternoon spent with solicitor sorting out our last will and testament, addressing somewhat distressing subjects such as who will look after dd in the event of our deaths, who will look after her temporarily until her permanent guardian arrives, who will inherit what, should dh or myself die, or if all three of us die all together. Everything had to be hand-written and there is nothing quite like writing and putting one's signature to the phrase "Je souhaite etre incinéré" to make you confront your own mortality!! 
Flying = absolutely none! Spent rest of time frantically packing parcels!
Whoknows good to hear that "normal service has resumed" at home! Your Christmas tree sounds lovely!
Whey-hey wrt: missing desk finally arriving Blue!
Blue and Nicknacks reading your posts I now have a serious case of "new furniture envy" !!
Can't very impressed by you attempting to knit socks! My Irish granny (who used to knit socks for all nine of her dc!) said they were very difficult to do: all that diminishing and escalating (or whatever it is called in knitting parlance) and turning of the heel and getting the elasticity of the ankle correct! [Doffs hat] Sounds like the perfect distraction from renovation work though!
Knitting it is difficult with adolescent girls and issues surrounding weight. DD suggested to me yesterday that one good way of losing weight was to use a smaller plate. When I asked her where she had gleaned that piece of information she said "we were all talking about it at school" . Given that she is stick thin and only 12 yrs old, I can't help but find this deeply depressing.
Big waves to Shannara Stillwearing and everyone else in or hovering around the coop!
To do: walk dog, pack parcels, walk dog, pack parcels, walk dog, pack parcels.
Back to join others rocking in the corner later!