I'm feeling rather more like myself today so I'll be back to school on Monday. I was thinking today that since we both work at the same place and there are no extra travel costs involved in getting me there and school is heated and I have to pay for heating at home, it is therefore probably cheaper for me to go to work. Hmmm.

I bought a halogen heater in the autumn and it is brilliant. With just the one 400 watt bar on, I get two and a half hours heat from one unit of electricity. This means that normally, I don't feel so guilty putting the heater on in the bedroom for a few minutes first thing in the morning or last thing at night. And it has been wonderful while I've been at home poorly. However, one bar went pop, flash, bang this morning. Is it possible to buy replacement bars? I need to find out. I expected it to last longer than three months even if it was just £12.95. It still works on the other bar but I'd like to know if the bars can be replaced. This heater has saved a fortune on central heating and I am very fond of it. I don't understand how it works and why it gives out so much light as well as heat on just 400 watts. But I like it anyway.

My son called in and left me a present in the hall last night on his way home from somewhere. He had texted me to say he was going to do this so that I would not panic in the bedroom when I heard the door opening and footsteps in the house downstairs. He had left me a "posy", he said. It turned out that he had been to visit an Asian grocer and bought an enormous bargain bundle of coriander. So he left me a bunch of coriander and the stalks from all his coriander that he had used/frozen. You should have seen the rabbits perk up when I took them out the coriander stalks - they just looove that stuff. It so happens that I have a big bag of carrots so I have plans for making a concentrated batch of carrot and coriander soup this weekend so that I can freeze several meals worth.