A minor change of topic: what about christmas 
Advent - if advent is the term in English
starts in a week's time it's making me nervous
. I have books as presents. Presents for my mum (nothing for Dad), nothing for DH and one or two games but that's it. We dont go for piles of presents but I'dlike to have one wow factor present for each person 
And talking of sickness, my son's got an awful cough but he is going to school because the older they get, the more problematic breaks from school become for them.