Poor, poor Mr & Mrs Doodle what a horrible shock and ordeal. Glad you are both safe home and recovering.
Mamissimo I'm convinced you'd look both dignified and impressive even without a pearls. You'll have Jeeves fawning over you again 
Grammaretto what a lovely image of your little ones squishing clay and turning out little pots. I bet they loved it.
Nfk there are few thing more inconvient than a leaky pond; it can't be left to sort itself out and all the plant moving makes me weak to just think about. How does one plug a leak like that?
Missedout It made my tummy turn over when I read about your hand, nothing to what it must have done to yours 
I hope it's coming right, what a horrible thing to happen. It sounds so very painful.
Cherry I do hope you are feeling better now, it must be so wearying for you. xxxx
Nortsat How are you feeling at the moment, better I hope.
Yes, I rationalised the rat - I'm not scared of them, which helps and having lived near water for over 20 years, see them around quite a bit - but NOT in my house! (although that did happen, just once, when I lived out in the wop-wops.)
dragonfly best of luck with your onchology appointment; scary at the best of times but with wretched covid lurking everywhere, even worse.
I was listening to a podcast and the word "panache" was used, so I pricked up my ears (I loved Joe Orton's plays!) and learned it means 'reckless heroism' and relates to the plume on the helmet of Henri 4th who urged on his men with, "Ralliez-vous à mon panache blanc!" (Follow my white plume).
So in the case of our dear lady here it would probably be "Ralliez-vous à mon panache sarcelle et violette!" 
I had expectted to be much better today but I'm not. Like Mamissimo I'm shivering and so cold that I put 2 electric blankets on my bed: an under and a neat little over one which has a timer, so I can fall asleep and it switches off.
My grand-daughter threatened offered to come over but what can she do? I can't eat and I'm so intimately acquainted with porcelain I think it might be easier to sleep in there
As I write this, I can feel the fever creeping from the near distance, so I better go back to bed. It's only flu of course and not a patch on what you dear people have to contend with all the time, so absolutely NO need to worry.
Love to you all. 