According to the internet a perfect personality is the result of having the perfect balance of blood, phlegm and bile (both yellow and black) in your body.

Too much of any one of these and bad stuff happens.  An excess of black bile can lead to depression while too much yellow bile causes Cholera.

Over the past few weeks we had noticed in the house an excess of enthusiasm and laughter, symptomatic of a need for a serious bloodletting session, and so we headed to the sports centre at St Dominic’s to give blood.

The National Blood Service sent me one of the nicest letters I’ve received in a long time (thanks Primark), here’s an extract;

Thank you for choosing to be a lifesaver.  By registering to give blood you’re about to join a special group of people: the five out of every hundred people who are able to give blood and actually do so.

This was really quite touching, someone other than my mother telling me that I was special.  The envelope also included a helpful little leaflet that was almost as if someone had re-imagined giving blood as a colouring book that didn’t involve needles or actually giving blood.

However, it was not to be.  I wasn’t allowed to give blood because in the past six months I’d visited parts of China that were coloured red on their map (supposedly this is bad).  Baines wasn’t allowed to give blood because of her ear infection and Gingell, although they jabbed her with the needle for a bit, turned out to have no blood a low iron count.

Then we went for a carvery, we’ll try again in February.