Woke at four on Friday morning clutching my chest and alarmed to find that my left arm felt like a brick. NHS Direct put the willies up me and pointed me in the direction of my nearest accident and emergency service. Fearing imminent death the wife drove me there and then my day of horror began.....

I was seen immediately because 'chest pains' is like 'open sesame' or for that matter 'asylum please' in the world of the NHS. I had a needle rammed up my hand and blood taken by a slap dash doctor, an ECG and a chest x-ray. All proved ok and I would have been allowed to go home there and then but for me letting slip that I had a family history of dicky tickers. That was red rag to a bull and I was wheeled up to the cardiology ward.

You should have seen me, the shame of it. I was in a hospital gown, with trainers and socks on, protesting that 'really, there's no need to fuss' trying to pull the blanket over my legs that I had slovenly not shaved for a while.

When I reached the ward I asked if I could 'just nip to the loo' but was told that I would have to use a comode! I was rigged up to a heart monitor and lay there without any dignity and just a bag of satsumas for company.

In the space of the day I had six different women touching my boobs, which under normal circumstances could hold a certain appeal. They had to keeping lifting them so they could stick those little patches on me. In the end I was wired up like a bloody Christmas tree, flashing my knickers and not my lights.

In the end ofcourse, I was all ok and allowed to go home, my pains were put down to indigestion, no doubt with a big rubber munchausen stamp on my medical records. The shame of it.

It's Christmas Eve and it's so exciting, the presents are wrapped and the house is rammed with food and fancies, I also still believe in Father Christmas and the Virgin's birth and what's wrong with that? It's magic, it's wonderful, it's smashing.
What I don't like though is GMTV at Christmas, I hate it, I have to turn off. Every year they show ex pats on Bondi Beach saying 'hello' to their mums, that really annoys me. If GMTV was a Christmas decoration it would be tinsel - and the cheap kind.
Anyway, have yourselves a Merry little Christmas, make the yuletide gay and don't forget the life for lola sale begins on Boxing Day!

I have not been much of a chatty kathy lately, I'd like to say it's because I have been so busy with festive parties and ofcourse my charity work but it's not. Most of my time on-line these days is spent ordering Christmas presents, what did we do before Play.com? The Wife and I were in Windsor today and if it wasn't for the rolls of wrapping paper in Smiths and roast chestnuts being sold in the train station you'd never know the big day was a week away. Shopping was a breeze, gone are the days of twenty minute queues to the tills and elbows in faces these days present buying is a doddle.
Mind you, my best laid plans have gone squew whiff, I had planned to go out yesterday and finish the wife off (her presents, not murder) but I have fallen fowl of the dreaded cold bug and couldn't face it. I have been waking up in the middle of the night with snot on my face sounding like the elephant man. Not only that, I seem to have buggered my back at the gym. I'm necking sherry to ease the pain and at this rate I'll pile back the pounds that I left on the treadmill. A girl can't win.

Let's all pray for Liza

Went on a day trip to France on Sunday, oh my what fantastic fun. The wife and I went with Teazey weazey Mark and Tim. I love a day trip, they hold more fun for me than a holiday. I think it must stem from school trips to museums and brass rubbing centres. The joy of wearing your own clothes, bundling to get on the back of a coach and the smell of a banana in tupperware. Priceless.