Well, it's Christmas Eve Eve. We did the rest of our Christmas shopping in Aylesbury yesterday, for each other. Saw LY in town, and stopped to say hello and Merry Christmas briefly. Saw no other kids and was surprised at how non-busy it was considering it was the Sunday before Christmas. And there was free parking in the main multi-story carpark. Plenty of spaces as usual as well.

Been assigned a doctor at last, Dr Vogwell. He graduated in 1989 apparently, which makes him roughly... in his thirties I'd say? I'm wondering if Jonathan and I have been assigned the same or different doctors. I got an NHS number come through because I couldn't find my other one. I assumed they'd try and find it out, not just give me another one, but hey. I'm not that bothered.

Jonathan's wrapping his presents to me in the kitchen. Which is why I'm writing this entry now. When he's finished I'm going to wrap his. We're trying to decide where to unwrap our pressies to each other... my parents, or his parents. Or if we should unwrap them at my parents in private (God knows what he's got me!) Only kidding.

So yeah, all our Christmas shopping completed by the 22nd December. Most of it completed the weekend before.

Cold wise, I'm feeling better than I have been the past week or so. That's right, my third illness since I started work just over two months ago! I'm hoping this cold is just a nose thing rather than the nose followed by the worsening sore throat followed by the lack of voice, followed by the uncontrollable coughing spanning almost three weeks. Then that diarrhoea. They say you catch everything when you start working with kids, and hell, I think they're right! Mind you, the last week of term, everyone in the nursery had a cold to some extent. For a change, mine was less worse than some of the others'.

Well, I'm going to make sure I really enjoy these two weeks off. I get eased into the work thing as well which is good. I've got a first aid course the first day back, which starts an hour after I usually have to be in work. And it finishes early too.

Had a nice pub lunch today, a minted leg of lamb steak, with a strawberry meringue nest for pudding.

Had bizarre dreams lately as well. Dreamt that Izzy turned up here somehow, and wasn't sure if Mum and Dave had driven all the way here, and dropped him off without anything to care for him with to pretend that he'd found his way up here by himself and then driven away again. Stephen was here as well, in a big car with a huge boot (trunk for the Americans). He took Izzy and rubbed him all round the boot so that when he took him back to Kent in it, he wouldn't spray. Then I picked him up to take him inside for a while, and he started to wee all down my leg! Which disgusted me highly in my dream I'll tell you now... ;-)

Another dream I had the other night was even stranger. I was in a tube station, sitting on a tube train, and this teenage boy wandered on, holding his leg, which was bleeding. On closer inspection, the wound turned out to be a gunshot wound, so I leapt up to help him. Wandering around trying to find help didn't appear useful, as it took ages to find someone to help. When I did, I asked where the nearest hospital was, and they said it was near to some tube station which I knew was very close to walk to. So I started walking with this boy to find this tube station (by the underground system thing), and it took ages, and I kept getting lost. In the end I found it though, and found another tube employee to tell me where the hospital was, and he looked at this guy's leg with the gunshot wound in it, and said "Oh, it's stopped bleeding now, he doesn't need to go to hospital." I remember feeling miffed that I'd spent all this time trying to help this guy only to be told he didn't need any help in the end, and then I woke up.

I also had a dream that was something to do with smallpox and cowpox. If you don't know, cowpox is a lesser form of smallpox, one that doesn't kill, but leaves you with an immunity to smallpox. (The first vaccine, Edward Jenner). Anyway, I remember in this dream someone had cowpox and was moaning saying that they were really ill or something, and I was telling them to stop being a wimp (or something like that!) and that they'd be fine and never get smallpox. Yes, I do have odd dreams. :-)

Anyway, we're heading to Kent tomorrow, and our route takes us around the North side of the M25. For those who don't know, the M25 is the motorway orbital of London, which is renowned for accidents. Also, we have to go over the Dartford Toll Bridge, so we have to find £1 in change somewhere. And then £1 coming back to go to Northampton.

I do wish we lived closer to Kent, but we had to stick around this area because of Jonathan's job. Maybe if he moves job we could find somewhere closer and move house or something. :-) Possibly. But Aylesbury is quite a good place to live. We're in a nice area, close to the town center, and near to Milton Keynes, which has a massive choice for shopping. (But alas, no free parking anymore)

Anyway, I've rambled enough. Have a wonderful Christmas everybody, if I don't see you before! (Or write to you before) Have a good 2003.