Hello everyone, I'm back from my civil service leadership training. The glamour! My feedback involved things like 'tall', 'elegant', 'scary' 
. I think rats plus Jil Sander boots at civil service training may have been a first 
Anyway, it was pretty good, lots of reminders that life is once and short and that we are responsible for taking charge of our own destinies, so sitting in loathsome jobs/marriages ( vin ) or whatever is deeply foolish and we can change it.
Your day sounded very poignant and lovely yesterday bloss I hope you are feeling peaceful. I was surprised during this course - which had a lot of rather intimate bonding moments - what personal traumas so many people have had.
I hope you are feeling better cake, don't shun abs if you have a chest infection - people used to drop dead from those before abs were invented.
The shred arrived in my package of lego/spynet/kiddie treasure, so I will now join the official club of people who own the Shred but can't be arsed
I have no va va voom - think breadstick - but think the VWA gives me a bit. I'm sure it would look better if I had curves of my own, but I find it simulates them a bit.
Hello to everyone else, well done with the babies bunny, so sorry about your utterly crap December Geordie, but maybe it's better that your dh is taking it in his stride rather than making a big drama? Mine does things like saying 'I can't believe that we've had to pay ?18,000 in Italian tax this year' just as I'm switching out the light to try to get a good night's sleep. I would rather prefer he said 'everything's great, sweet dreams' or something.
Can't wait to go on holiday. For flights with toddlers my best experiences have been on airlines like Air China where everyone wants to play with your baby, no one resents invasion of their personal space, and the hostesses take your 18month old ds away for 2 hours and giggle while he rips all the labels off the food trolleys etc. 747s also good: I spent nigh on 8 hours once sitting at the foot of the stairs while ds1 went up and down them. And it was a night flight - extraordinary. Quite low effort for me though. I used to much prefer going without dh as he found the whole thing stressful and made me all tense. Now it's OK - the boys are old enough to amuse themselves with an ipad and a book, or a pad of paper and pencils.