Goodness. It feels like about a year has passed in these last 10 days. I've been too busy to contemplate doing much other than new-flat things and spending all day long on phones and online researching tradesmen and solutions. Such is the life of a property developer I expect: Not quite as glamorous as the telly would have it.

It started a week last Sunday when I didn't get to go running for lack of time, which was a whole weekend down the tubes. Retrospectively, since I now have a streaming cold and am unlikely to make it around the Chase duathlon circuit on Sunday, it doesn't matter, but at the time it just annoyed me.

Monday was worse. Seconds after closing the door in the morning, I realised my keys (and wallet and phone) were still inside. Fortunately I'd picked up the car keys and my swimming gear so I could take Miles swimming as usual (after borrowing £3 from local mum at nursery). I hoped to speak to Roj first thing so he could courier his own keys back to me in time for the end of swimming, but his mobile was on answerphone and I don't know any other numbers by heart.

I ended up phoning him again from Jody's nursery (after several calls chasing directory enquiry services for his number) and getting his keys couriered to me outside the house. But a process which should have taken half an hour took over two hours, by which time I was fending off traffic wardens and freezing in the car with Miles who wanted to press every button and clamber over every inch, screeching as he went. I worried that Roj had realised he didn't actually have his keys with him, but couldn't get in touch with me to tell me that the courier wasn't coming. So finally I walked down the mews and asked some of the builders there whether I could borrow a ladder (an idea which had occurred to me earlier, but which I had abandoned after seeing nobody suitable, in favour of the husband-courier thing). And my saviour for the day found a step-ladder just tall enough for him to sneak over the window box and in through the bathroom window. He even removed his boots before coming downstairs and letting me in. I wanted to kiss him, but I think he'd have run a mile. 2 minutes later the courier finally showed up, having been stopped, allegedly, for routine police checks. So that was a waste of half a day.

On Friday Jody threw up in the swimming pool because of having swallowed too much water. They had to close the pool for 90 minutes while they searched for puke and scooped it out with a net. Felt terrible for the other kids who had their lessons curtailed, but Swimming Nature will be offering make-up classes, so it's hassle-factor rather than anything else.

My parents were here from Friday lunchtime, mum to help with babysitting and dad to help with DIY. We walked in to the flat after lunch to see the whole kitchen demolished and in pieces in the sitting room. Which was fine, but I then had to spend time chasing disposal, since I needed access to the room in the weekend. Eventually Irish Noel came out with his two little sons and we spent an hour squeezing it all into his van. It was a disgusting job; all the pieces were covered in a thick layer of grease and grime and our hands were black at the end of it, but it was such a relief to see that room clear again.

The rest of the weekend was spent removing skirting boards (and making a mess), scraping paintwork (and making a mess), mending floorboards, rolling up carpets and underlay, ripping out built-in cupboards, and making a mess. There was nothing too unexpected in the process but I think neither of my parents realised that we were attempting more than just a basic cosmetic overhaul. Walking into what really amounts to a building site was clearly a bit of a shock, and on the back of their own building project going to pot, there was quite a lot of jaded pessimism going on.

I stood firm though, with my optimism, and after a lot of work ringing around for quotes, have found the guys I need to get the right jobs done in the right timescale. I still believe that on the 24th Feb, we will be moving into that flat and it will have half a new kitchen (worktop pending), new paintwork, sparkly wood floor, neat skirting and everything else we've been planning to achieve over the last few months. There's still an awful lot that could go wrong but until it does, I will continue to believe that these things are possible. We're not asking for a complete rebuild after all.

Meanwhile Miles and I are struggling with this cold, and I'm awaiting the next week to discover whether the kids have contracted chicken pox, since there's an epidemic at nursery right now. That'd be great timing. Not.

And I'm wondering whether I can wangle the trip to Shropshire this weekend after all, not to do the race (I really don't think I'd be able to finish it right now), but to see Camilla on Saturday who returned from her amazing world trip and momentous engagement last week. I can't wait to catch up.

Just got back from East Grinstead for Roj's laser eye surgery. He's in agony (as the nurse described; for four hours he'll feel like he's got a really bad case of shampoo-in-the-eyes), and trying to sleep upstairs. The kids are in front of the telly and I'm trying not to sleep downstairs. A hefty training schedule (hefty meaning anything more than one session a week!) has meant exhaustion has arrived. Going to bed at midnight doesn't help.

Roj can't do any exercise for 2 weeks now, which was broken to him after the surgery, not before. So his first session back will be our Cannock Chase offroad duathlon on 4 February. Goodness knows then, whether he should really be helping during our DIY weekend next weekend (all that dust and grime going in his eyes?) Maybe he'll have to swap roles with my babysitting mum. Hmm. He also must wear uncomfortable goggles today and every night thereafter for 4 weeks, to stop him scratching his own eyes out presumably.

I watched 5 minutes of the surgery on the telly. I didn't mean to, but as I was going in to check on his status, one of the nurses said he'd be about 5 minutes and ushered me to the seat at the end of the waiting room. I settled down and then she pointed at the screened-off telly and said, "That's him!" And thereafter my sick attraction to blood and gore forced me to watch in detail the extreme close-up of Roj's eyeball as his eyelids were clamped open, a flap cut in the eyeball's membrane which was then rather vigorously freed from the ball itself, then the lens lasered, and finally the eyeball rinsed and smoothed shut. I tried hard not to faint but the blood very tangibly drained from my head. Yukky.

I'm almost feeling organised for the new flat nowadays. There's still an awful lot to do but progress is being made. I've stripped all the gripper rods from all the rooms (while somehow containing my boredom) and I'm going in later today to strip the paintwork from the door hinges so that my man can pick them up tomorrow for chemical stripping. I'm not very supportive of chemical paint stripping but when it saves me from sanding down 6 doors and costs only £15 a door, I feel it's worth swallowing my reservations: Such is my fickleness. I have, however, bought a big tub of much more environmentally- and human-friendly paint stripper (water based ... now how's that going to work?) which I'm going to liberally paste over the other woodwork in the hope of a minor miracle. Otherwise I'll be purchasing the builder's version of a hairdryer and hoping not to singe the doorframes, shatter the windows, or set my hair alight in the process of burning the stuff off. Interesting.

Westminster council will be picking up the very dodgy old fridge freezer on Wednesday (let's hope the most unreliable of lifts is working that morning so we can get the damn thing outside before Roj goes to work). And I've also succumbed to hiring a couple of meatheads on the morning of February 24th to help us move. Ascending those steep flights with only a Miles in my arms is work enough, never mind also manoeuvring a sofa. We haven't got many big unwieldy items but when 2 men and a van only cost £50 an hour, it's worth having them over. The only down side being that they're turning up at 8am so they can maximise pre-parking-attendant-prowl time. No lie-ins for us then.

The floor's nearly sorted (that is, I've almost decided which of the zillion soundproofing underlay options to plump for), the kitchen's nearly sorted (if I finally decide on the colour of the extractor hood), and there's nothing else to think about really. Apart from whether we will be hated forever for banging on the floors to remove the skirting boards during a precious weekend. I must remember to warn our sensitive new neighbours below. Eek.

Recipe for an envigorating breakfast: 7 reps of Primrose Hill before you start. This is also the recipe for feeling knackered by 8:45am.

Got the keys to the flat yesterday, all 6 sets of them. And the vendor/tenant is finally out; the place is empty. It was amazing to walk in there for the first time feeling like it was really ours. I've decided to do some of the small preparatory work ourselves, rather than pay through the nose for builders who take one look at the area and the single female in charge and triple the bill. So I spent 15 minutes yesterday ripping up carpets and gripper strips, with the help of Miles sticking a screwdriver underneath for me. Very exciting. Shame the lift was broken though, so I had to make 3 trips up 6 steep flights with Miles in one arm and a big fat heavy toolbox in the other. That'll be my weight training for the day. On leaving I met the only other of our neighbours to own a flat in the building and he said the lift is cheap and often broken. Not the news you want to be hearing when you're about to be moving to the top floor flat with 2 kids under 4, but nothing will dent my enthusiasm for the new place right now.

When we left Wimpole Street, the flat felt smaller and more forlorn somehow, without our stuff in there. By contrast this Montagu Square flat looked much bigger and cleaner. It's always been a bit cluttered and grubby when we've looked around but sans furniture it reminded me how spacious and bright it is. I can't wait to get stuck in now. Can hardly believe that in 6 weeks we'll be there for good. So much to do in the meantime, but for now I'm just luxuriating in the feeling of being on the threshold of something new and exciting.

I'm amazed my training is going so well after so many false starts this winter. For the first time this morning I felt I could really crack on with the pace, and ran for 70 minutes in total. Our first race - an offroad duathlon of 2.5k, 15k, 5k - is approaching fast so I really have no choice but to jump into the schedule head first, but this year like no other I feel no lethargy holding me back. Partly I think the active lifestyle I've been leading these past 3 years has helped me, and partly I've been wanting this for so long now that it's sweet payoff to be outside in the fresh air pushing my body at last. I even managed a double loop with Toria on Sunday morning, on the back of a hefty night drinking and dining with Sven and Charlotte who were in London for some work and tourism. We spent all day Saturday at the Science Museum (discovering that Miles doesn't really have the patience for an Imax movie), and looking at the Shell Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum, and then some of Sunday morning whizzing down the slides at the Tate Modern. Which is the first time I've been to the Tate Modern, shamefully. Lovely weekend.

Jody did her first yoga session yesterday, which was a full-on hour in a gym basement with 12 other toddlers and a teacher who I find a bit of a cold fish. Apparently Jody's a natural. The teacher was impressed particularly, that she could happily lie on her back on her mat, with arms outstretched and away from all the other kids. Speaks volumes about her self-confidence apparently, that she doesn't need to curl up in the mat, or reach out to another person, or roll onto her front. It gave Pat, Sabine and I a valuable 45 minutes drinking coffee too, which is a bonus.

There are a million congratulations that need to be said this January. First to Sonia and Martin for the birth of little Ellie on New Year's Day, then Madeleine and Erick for the birth of Sebastian last week (pre-eclampsia, induction, 3 days of labour and a C-section, poor love), then Jill for the birth of her little girl, and Anita for the birth of baby Sebastian, and finally for the engagement on the top of Kilimanjaro of Milly and Graham. What a prolific month!

I must get back to 'work'. Much carpet to strip and a brand new computer to configure. Nusphere here we come.

I thoroughly burst my endorphin-filled bubble on Saturday by going shopping for post-baby-bras (which is next to post-baby-blues in the dictionary). I had boobs once, I know I did, but now that their function has died, so, it seems, has their substance. They have vanished like ghosts in the night. I cheered myself up by spending £400 at Figleaves.com (£375 of which will undoubtedly be returned), but the residual depression remains. Maybe I should capitalise on our proximity to Harley Street. Do you think they'd give me a discount for overlooking their waiting rooms?

Then I went running on Sunday morning with Toria. Ha! What a joke! And what an arrogant and naive assumption that I'd be ok to go running twice in two days when I've hardly been twice in the last two months. I got 20 minutes in and then my legs fell off. It felt like they had, anyway, and that I was painfully shuffling around on bleeding stumps. Through treacle. Very embarassing (especially after raving on to Toria about just how impressive and exhilarating our first 2007 run would be).

This morning's attempt was better; only a thin layer of treacle this time and more distance achieved, despite the fact that I had to be kicked out of bed at 6:25am to make it (after 15 minutes of sleeping soundly through my alarm). Next run Thursday morning, then Friday afternoon and Sunday morning, and this is how I hope to continue. I ordered my wetsuit today. Maybe it was just part of the retail therapy, but I may as well make use of the January sales somehow. It won't be for sexy lingerie.

My issues with builders continue this week. I've had it up to here with diagrams of configurations of joists and underlays and bloody acoustic insulation solutions. I've spoken to 6 different people and got 6 different answers, most of which centre around the concept that there's a cat's chance in hell of sound-insulating a wooden floor adequately. And this in the knowledge that 115 square meters of Kahrs oak is inexorably making it's way towards us. Forgive me if I don't cheer.

And my dodgy builder can't really speak English. And the floorer won't return my calls again. And really, all I want to do is shove the building project into a large and cavernous abyss. Hopefully with mean and unusually ravenous crocodiles at the bottom of it. Then watch gleefully as it gets painfully and meticulously ripped apart by their razor teeth. With lots of blood-loss. Who gives a damn about whether the rubber membrane is laid above or below the self-levelling compound or whether I order enough isobase or not. Isobase: sounds like a new Clinique product if you ask me; a polyfilla-esque foundation for over-stressed skin. Maybe I'll order some after all.

I went running this morning for the first time in goodness knows how long and it felt so good. It was raining heavily all the way but my NYARA cap kept me dry and there's something about the rain (as long as you're warm) that makes it feel extra invigorating. I did 2 reps of Primrose Hill and would certainly have doubled that had it not been for the fact that I'm running with Toria tomorrow morning and need to be able to keep the pace. It felt so good to be outside blasting away the cobwebs and feels even better now I'm back home, showered, fed, warmed, and still feeling the flush of endorphins. The whole time I was out I was visualising which duathlons and bike races I could fit in this year. For some reason I've got a real urge to get on my road bike this season (it's been languishing at my parents' almost since our return from the US), and Sven's talk of sportives has given me a bit of a bee in the bonnet, to the point that I've been investigating local bike clubs. What I really want to do is the Fred Whitton but I don't think 4 months of dedicated training on flat London terrain is going to prepare me for 110 miles of the hilliest that Britain has to offer, let alone when you throw a house-move and permanent toddlercare into the mix. But I've already suggested the possibility to Roj of taking a week amongst the British hills somewhere, with bikes, and taking it in turns to do a 2-hour ride in the mornings. I don't think he was particularly inspired by the idea but I'll keep working on him and I did notice that an eBay page of men's road-bike listings was open on my computer when I sat down at it this morning.

Miles threw his first tantrum yesterday and it was a corker. I can't really identify the thing that properly set him off although he was definitely tired. First he was annoyed that I had to clean his bottom before he got in the bath (he sees the water and that's it - he wants in), and then he refused to stand up and let me wash him. When I tried to stand him up forcibly he got very obnoxious and did the whole arched back, screeching thing (which with a soapy slippery baby is quite difficult to manage). But it was when I moved his toothbrush out of his reach that he really kicked off. He was screaming as loud as his sizeable lungs could manage (as our furthest neighbours will no doubt attest), kicking his legs and going red and apoplectic. He was clearly in a rage, but the only thing I could do about it was get him out of the bath, into a towel and hug him really tight in the hope that he'd calm down. And this is interesting because when Jody used to tantrum (which, fortunately, was rarely), a hug was the very last thing she wanted and the only course of action was to let her get on with it. There is a school of thought that says that a kid's tantrum can actually scare them sometimes, given that it's a sudden and uncontrolled outpouring of emotion over something that they don't fully understand, and the best thing to do is to hug them tight until it passes. Jody would only scream harder if I took that approach, but yesterday Miles tangibly relaxed in my arms and his screeching died down to a dull sob.

I got him into bed eventually (after he'd thumped me in the face a couple of times) and he did a 13-hour night, which is testament to how knackered he was. Not too many more of those please (tantrums, I mean, not the 13-hour nights).

Anyway it was all offset by the fact he said Mama in the morning, while definitely addressing me. And then repeated it later on. So Mama-Boot-Camp worked then.

I had a run-in with celebrity yesterday, when it was apparent that Jody was having a swim lesson (her first without armbands) at the same time as Claudia Winkleman's son Jake. I nearly said to the boy's mum, "Are you Claudia Winkleman or do you just look like her?" But I chickened out and only discovered I was right when I came back and checked online. Maybe when Jody grows up she'll be proud to say she peed with Claudia Winkleman's son. Hmm.

Jody loved the swimming. She was a bit distracted but the instructor had oodles of patience and got her happily dunking her face which is something she's never been happy doing after the unfortunate underwater photography session at aged 18 months which seemed to put her off submersion for life. I don't know how long it'll be before she can swim unassisted, and I don't know how she'll manage the lessons after a full day at nursery and a half-hour splashabout session, but I have high hopes that she'll take to it. With a little wetsuit to stall those shivers.

It's always difficult returning to the blog if I haven't posted during Christmas. So much has happened over the past couple of weeks but now I'm almost back to the old routine it seems ridiculous to go back and talk about it.

It has been lovely though. There was a markedly lower stress level at my parents' house despite the fact that they had an extra couple of adults to cater for on the 24th. We all mucked in (or perhaps I should say that we were allowed to muck in) much more than normal and that helped my mum deal with the lion's share on Christmas Eve. It was also lovely to see Oldemor so relaxed and seemingly harbouring little ill effects from her difficult year. And Christian and Dian - who we rarely see anyway - on very good form and so complimentary about the kids.

Christmas day at Nanna's was characteristically indulgent and relaxing. We walked in to see two enormous boxes in the sitting room for the kids to open. I wondered what on earth she'd bought and how we'd get them in the car but she'd just been imaginative with a couple of teddies and a stack of helium balloons, which thoroughly delighted Jody and Miles.

Jody went mad for Christmas, like I thought she would, but there was no over-stimulated tantrumming like there was last year, and she behaved brilliantly when allowed to stay up late on the 24th. In fact she behaved really well throughout and her imagination was brought alive by different adults to interact with and new vocabulary to practice.

Sadly Miles suffered from a nightmare cold - or was it his last molars coming through - for the duration which meant he didn't partake in the festivities as I hoped he might, that he was pretty clingy and worst of all, that he slept apallingly for the first part of the holiday which meant that we were left struggling to recover for the rest. Thank goodness that we had a bit of help to rely on.

There were other good things that went on around the actual Christmas celebrations. We had an entertaining time powdering clays despite icy fingers on the morning of the 23rd and we spent a good 24 hours with Sven and Charlotte in Tarporley after Christmas including a now customary trip to the bat cave at Chester Zoo. And then we headed down to South Wales for a very civilised and enjoyable 24-hour New Year's party with Blockette and associated others. Especial congratulations for two pregnancies in the party which is perhaps one of the reasons for the civilised nature of the merrymaking. And perhaps we're growing up too.

Notwithstanding the struggle with Miles's sleep habits, it was a relaxing break with just the right amount of alcohol, amazing food and great company. In fact the only thing missing really, was the chance to go running or cycling, since my latest lurgy is still lingering. This though, I hope to resolve asap. In fact it's compulsory that I resolve it given that we signed up for the London Triathlon yesterday. Not the nutter's version but the sprint on the Saturday. We're also going to sign up for the London duathlon in Richmond Park in September and potentially another series of duathlons on Cannock Chase throughout the spring, so it appears it's time to finally dust of those bikes and those endurance muscles and do something with them. Fab.

Apart from that, there's loads to think about in the New Year. The renovation plans for the new flat are coming together after many arguments and a whole heap of paranoia. In less than two weeks we will have vacant possession and loads of stress as we try and coordinate 3 sets of builders so that we can move in at the end of Feb. In a peak of consideration I contacted the woman who lives in the flat below whose buggy I have seen adorning the staircase, to warn her of the imminent 6 weeks of building work that will take place above. To my relief she rang back to say she works 4 days a week while her 1-year-old is in nursery, so I don't have to worry too much about silencing the builders. I can't wait to get out of this rental place and start work on our real home for the first time ever.

And then there's the packed schedule of child activities for this term and beyond. I've increased Jody's time at nursery so she will be spending 2 afternoons there, but she will also be continuing with ballet on Tuesdays, doing a little kiddy yoga class on Mondays with some of her good friends, and taking swimming lessons after school finishes on Fridays. I can't believe that this September she'll be going to school already. She's independent and confident and smart but she still seems too young for that huge step. And at the same time I'll start sending Miles to nursery a couple of mornings. It's a little way off but I'm already looking forward to having a little time to myself. It's been a while.

So Happy New Year everyone, and roll on another good one.