I called into the nursery on my way home from work, full of end of term good-will. I’d get a Christmas tree up and ready for when ActorLaddie got back and we could start the holidays in piney perfection. The chosen tree had a lovely shape; plenty of needles, smelt of Christmas.

The kids helped me lug it up the stairs to the living room – this being when we had GrannyBorders installed on the ground floor. Decorations ready, festive ginger wine poured. We just needed to put the tree in its stand, take off the netting – and that’s when I found that it was too big for the bay.

Being a person of infinite resource and sagacity, I got the secateurs and chopped off a bit from the top. Now it just fitted into the bay but the shape was all wrong. So I set about pruning but every cut made the tree look worse and made me more desperate. Eventually, we were on a carpet of pine cuttings looking at a corpse of a Christmas tree.

At this point, I threw it out of the window.

I guess ActorLaddie must have been taken aback when he returned from work to find the front garden covered in bits of Christmas tree but he was wise enough to keep his counsel. Perhaps the kids forewarned him. Perhaps he just smelt the ginger wine.

The three piece suite we ordered in the January sales looked lovely in Marks and Sparks; and indeed it is lovely. Vaguely regency, in a very attractive stone colour. Their Harrogate range, if you are an aficionado. Naturally we measured the width to make sure it would fit into our living room; about an inch wider than the existing suite, which ought not be a problem.

Up until yesterday, when the suite was scheduled to arrive, our main concern has been the fact that the kitchen installation is already a week behind schedule, as the plaster still isn’t dry. Something to do with the walls not having been truly plumb “as they used to measure by eye when these houses were built”, hence the plaster having to be thicker than anticipated. We’ve had dehumidifiers running night and day but this morning the walls still failed to pass inspection. So it will now be Monday before an impact is made on the pile of boxes containing our new kitchen units, which are heaped in the living room, alongside the galley which we’ve set up in the corner, the fridge and all the stuff from our old kitchen.

Into this chaos, our new suite arrived yesterday, bang on schedule. And – as I imagine you’ve guessed already – as soon as the chaps carried it into the room, we realised that it’s too big. Even if the room weren’t already full of kitchen, something about the style – not just the width but the depth and height – means that it’s completely wrong for the space. I can’t live with it.

Marks won’t take it back and ActorLaddie won’t let me prune the top. So our living room now contains: the stuff from our old kitchen, the boxes of our new kitchen, the regular living room furniture and a new, enormous, three piece suite covered in dust sheets and absolutely not to be sat on, as it is currently up for sale on eBay.

I’m writing this from my bed. It’s the sanest place in the house.

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Onto Parkie stuff now, for you fellow movers and shakers.

From time to time, I’ve wondered what my tremor would be like if I weren’t taking Sinemet – the dopamine replacement. I’m on a pretty low dose anyway, and the discussion I had with the registrar when it was first prescribed factored in me teaching full time, so basically needed all the help I could get.

Anyway, that’s no longer the case, so I decided about a week ago to see what happens if the symptoms weren’t masked by Sinemet, just out of curiosity. And, rather to my surprise, I’ve found that the horrible, grating low which used to hit me about ten minutes after taking the tablets has completely disappeared: I hadn’t really noticed how much I disliked the feeling until it stopped happening. My tremor is more bothersome, sure, but on balance I think I’d rather have the symptoms than the side-effects. Any thoughts from other Parkies out there?

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I had an email from GiveAsYouLive to say that an extra £5 has been paid to the Cure Parkinson’s Trust because someone followed my link and then signed up. If it was you, thanks! If you’ve not yet signed up, the link is here.