In answer to HR's question, did I deliver Ellie? The answer to that would be no...

I swore blind that I would not be anywhere near Grego when she had Ellie, and for very good reason. A year before Ellie was born, my other sister went into labour with Charlie. I was on nights (as usual), and had been looking after a lady who unfortunately ended up going for an emergency section. When I came out of theatre one of my colleagues told me that they were just in the process of admitting my sis.

It's not a good idea to get too involved with the people who are close to you when they're in labour. Management are worried that because labour is unpredictable and things can go wrong, a close relative may not be able to keep their...

lettie

I am on nights (yet again), but I have just had a couple of days off. I have been busy in a lazy kind of way. The majority of my busyness hasn't involved moving from the settee.

I have been surfing a lot on the internet and finalising arrangements with various motels, car hire and airlines. Everything is now printed, there's nothing worse than travelling thousands of miles to have a pimply faced motel reception trainee tell you that they're not expecting you. So all of our confirmation e mails are printed and filed away.

The reason that I have had a day sat on my bum is because I have hurt my knee. I was hoovering yesterday and as I wrestled the hoover through the kitchen door I gave my knee cap a right wallop on...

lettie

My own personal countdown has started now for our Australia trip. Apart from the cricket which is only a very small part of it, we want to try to see as much as possible in the short time that we're there. I have been furiously searching online and booking things over the last few weeks and we now have the skeleton of an itinery.......no travel agent required.

We are having the first 3 days in Sydney city centre and should get to bring in the New Year whilst we're there. On our last day I have booked us a car because we are moving on. From Sydney we will be driving to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for a couple of days. From there we are doing a mega drive to Albury. It is a bit of an ambitious drive but we should make it to...

lettie

A few days into our holiday we decided to hire a car. It gave us the freedom to explore the island without relying on public transport or the overpriced tours which were being touted on every street corner.

We set off to drive to Timanfaya National Park which covers 51 square kilometers of the island. Back in the early 1700s Timanfaya was an extremely fertile area which supported crops and numerous small villages but that was all to tragically change. In 1730 a series of massive volcanic eruptions began. This was one of the most important events in the history of vulcanology, mountains rose out of the earth spewing lava and ash for miles around. More than 20 villages were buried and the once fertile land was replaced by a sea...

lettie

We had a bit of a lively approach to our landing in Lanzarote. It only lasted a couple of minutes but I'm sure that several people actually screamed as we were being buffeted around. The landing itself was smooth and after picking up our luggage we headed outside for a taxi. Ten minutes later we were at our apartment in Puerto del Carmen. It was a clean looking little complex with traditional Canarian style rooms. They were very spacious with wooden windows and doors and wooden furniture. The thing with the wooden furniture is that it is not overly comfy. Our beds made our backs ache with the wooden frames and thin matresses, I'm sure that they were designed by the inquisitor Torquemada because I'd have spilled all of my secrets after a tortuous...

lettie