I like to start a break with a bit of a tidy up. Especially when that gets rid of the mountain of bits of paper that have been obscuring my desk at home for weeks now. I've improved the layout of my room - there's a new bookcase to give some nursery space, and my dad's set of shelves is now on my desk, which I'm really pleased with.

Other than that, from now on I'm limited to one useful chore around the house per day. The only exception to that is anything to do with plants or photos - I can do as much as I want there as they're both relaxing and sadly neglected right now. It'll be good to catch up.

Basically, I don't have to go back to work until the 23rd. Woot!

One thing - I want to get myself a cheap printer. Colour would be nice, along with low running costs (although I'm not going to print much). The crunch is that it needs to work with Linux (specifically Ubuntu). This is the sort of thing I hate organising with Linux, so if anyone knows one that will work...

We had our first ante-natal class yesterday. Along with the expectant couple from hell - they've had sickness, diabetes, waters breaking, separating pubis, wrong shaped coccyx, and the local nappy scheme didn't cover the expensive american nappies they'd had their eye on ;) Seriously, I've been blessed with an easy pregnancy, and I really do have sympathy for them. But some people just seem to be disaster areas that you can spot coming...

My mum's still ensconced in hospital. Which is great, because as she's now one week clear of any vodka consumption, she's actually reasonably pleasant company. Physically she's knackered - she can't even sit up of her own accord. If I were more religious, I would say that that sort of alcoholism is a demon possession - it sucks you dry of everything, then just re-animates you into a vicious banshee. Here's hoping it'll last a couple of months. Wouldn't it be great if she were sober for the birth of her first grandchild?*

* I know that this is probably hideously unrealistic, but it doesn't seem to help anything much to assume the worst is going to happen, so I'm just going to hope for the best