Reminds me of the comments made by my husband's family vicar. He'd been asked to conduct a blessing for us (we'd eloped!), and when I said I was doing a PhD he was extremely disparaging. Actually he was thoroughly disagreeable in many ways, and didn't get to conduct a blessing in the end :)

Generally I'm lucky that my family are very understanding. I'm on my second go at a PhD, having fallen seriously ill early in the first full-time one (I'm now part-time). My family understand how big a challenge it is, and how much it means to me. They might occasionally go blank at some of the things I'm doing, but that's ok.

Forgot to say I had a submission nightmare earlier: obviously it's getting to me! It involved me struggling to print things out, and getting really frazzled. Forced myself to wake up before it got too bad!

Made me all the more determined to have things tied up, almost completely, by the start of March, so I can calmly submit my thesis before my absolute university deadline of the end of March.

Really liked the knitting analogy Poppy. I used to knit a lot and that does echo my experiences.

Well done on the draft Rick! I seem to be forever be doing corrections/feedback on my drafts, but there must come an end eventually. I've just pasted my supervisor's latest feedback into an online to do list, and have started crossing things off. Once that's all done that's it. Finito!

Thanks Sue. I'm not in a rush to finish, apart from beating my absolute uni deadline of submitting by March. I don't know if I would be able to graduate this year, but if I get through I'll consider myself to be a doctor as soon as I can, with just i's to dot and t's to cross.

Good luck Teek. If I was you I'd just focus with getting on with the writing. It doesn't sound as though drawing up plans is too productive for you. But maybe the terror will hit at some point and you'll be spurred into superhuman action? Good luck anyway.

And nice to hear from DrSeeker too. Good luck. Nice to have someone else in the final stages.

Do you have a second supervisor? That's a requirement at my university, and even if it's not exactly their field the second supervisor can provide an extra pair of eyes, and feedback on whether a thesis is likely to be up to scratch.

I honestly think this is the sort of thing that only an academic reading through the thesis can properly assess.

Good luck with the referencing Sue. Sooner you get going on it the quicker it will be over.

I'm not doing bad. Been trying to sort out arrangements for my viva: I'll need slightly unusual ones due to disability, so have put in a formal request for these. And been filling out the form to get the examiners process underway (external already agreed). Was a bit freaked out to read on the form that vivas at my university are usually within 6 weeks of submission. Ye gads May! Also managed a little more thesis feedback processing at the weekend (up to page 160 - wooh!) so will be pushing ahead with that over the next few days, moving on to tackling the "yuck" pile! And going to arrange a meeting with my supervisor soon to discuss a few issues.

During my part-time PhD I saw my supervisor once every 3 months or so on average. The meetings were very productive, and we were in touch regularly by email as well. I'm at a distance though, not based on campus, so wouldn't see him at coffee etc.

I'm at a distance from my university too, but my supervisors can still give me feedback on my writing (usually sent in the post, or by email) and advise me when I'm ready. Can't yours do that? They should be in the best position to judge what you've written and if it's up to scratch.

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I'm not including my degrees at all on the titles page. Is that normal to do? It doesn't seem to be in my discipline.

I'd sit tight, lest you cheese them off. This is just my view as someone pre-viva though, so I haven't been in the situation myself. But if I was an examiner I'd rather examine what's been given, than have the rug pulled from under me part-way through.

What helps me most with presentations is to run through them multiple times beforehand, practising what I'll say, and editing out things that don't work so well, where I get distracted and start rambling.

As for the nerves it gets easier with time. In the early days I always used to calm myself by thinking that it would all be over in an hour or two, or whatever time.

Thanks Alpacalover: managed to make a start on the big envelope on Tuesday night, working on it for about an hour, and getting half way through the easy fixes. I can only ever work for up to an hour a day now, so that was good going for me. Couldn't manage anything yesterday, but hoping for another hour's worth later on this evening.

Won't be submitting until March though. I need to allow time to hear back from my other supervisor, and am also obviously - as usual - working rather slowly.

I agree with the advice to leave it for a couple of days, then pick it up and look at it with fresh eyes. That's the only way I find I can get any proper distance from what I've done.

Welcome to the PhD journey! Good luck for the next 3 years.