I was a bit horrified when I picked Sophie up from her sleepover this morning to find that she absolutely stank of smoke. Yuck. I hadn't realised what a heavy smoker the mother of this particular friend is - we will have to make sure that all future sleepovers with this child take place at our house rather than theirs. I really feel for that little girl. Living in that sort of environment has got to be taking a massive toll on her health.

Once Sophie had bathed and smelt like herself again, we embarked on the Great Floorboard Buying Expedition. We were the recipients of many a pitying look as we trundled our giant cart, laden with floorboards, underlay, edging stuff and sundry other boring bits and pieces around Homebase. Seemed like everyone else was only in there to pick up Christmas decorations and fun festive goodies; apparently we are the only people crazy enough to embark on complicated DIY projects at this time of year. Getting our stuff went quite smoothly, though, thanks to Bobby's military-style planning. (Hmmm ...this metaphor may get an Iraq-inspired reprise if things go wrong during the actual floor-laying process.) Smoothly, that is, except for the bit where we had to buy a hand-saw, and had no clue as to which kind to get. We had no idea that there were so many types, with such a variety of teeth between them, and were reduced to mumbling half-forgotten Hamlet quotes until eventually, and with much relief, we found one with a picture of floorboards on it, conveniently called the Laminator. (Its target market obviously being people like us, who are utterly clueless about DIY things, but who are nevertheless D'ing I Themselves.)

This afternoon we made a start on the floor; just did some of the edging bits. And we painted most of the hallway. We would have got more done, but, cruelly, the little workbench thingy that Bobby had picked up in order to make the sawing and so on go more easily turned out to require major IKEA-style assembly, and so turned into a project all of its own.

However, so far so good on the home improvement front. Let's hope we can keep it up this week.