Sparky

Out of habit, I was up soon after 06:30 and was enjoying my first coffee of the day when Ellie came down. She had slept well, but awoke at 06:45 and heard me moving about, so came down to join me. Zoe and Ellie had prepared some gifts for the teachers. We would have to take these to school with us, but first, I had to mend one of the gift bags (which had torn and started to fall apart). It was fiddly, but I managed a neat repair which should pass muster. We took Ellie across to the school at the usual time, then Diane went home to prepare for Pilates, and I set out for my walk.

It was bright and sunny as I walked, and I was grateful for my sunglasses. My book continued to entertain me as I walked, and it will be a shame to get to the end in the next few days. By the time I arrived home, Diane had already gone. I settled down for breakfast, then grabbed the Christmas lights that I planned to hang in front of the house. I took the first set outside, planning to unravel them and balance the distribution across the bay window. This proved problematic. Despite reeling the lights onto a cable reel at the end of last Christmas, the lights had spent the year knitting and knotting themselves together. Unravelling them was like unpicking a bowl of spaghetti. It took me well over an hour to unknot them and lay them out. Fortunately, it only took about 10 minutes to install them and provide power. I had another set of lights to install. They had been far better behaved in the interim and unravelled quickly and cleanly.

After some lunch, I managed an hour with my Kindle before Diane arrived back from her post-Pilates meet-up with Kathie. She just had time to demolish a cup of tea before we went to collect Ellie from school.

The annual "Santa Float" is due on the estate this evening. Ellie is back with Zoe, so I'm not sure whether we'll see it or not. She was certainly looking forward to it.