Holidays are coming

After spending a month here mother-in-law has finally left the building meaning that the washing and cooking have returned to my list of chores. Fortunately while she was here it facilitated me getting a few more jobs done including moving the living room around, decorating and finally building Janes shelf for the tea and coffee stuff.

The winter is now properly closing in on us with the onset of frosty mornings and a requirement to wear jeans and a jumper instead of shorts and t-shirt. With this cold spell I have decided it is time to return the green house fish back to the lake where they came from. Although my aquaponics experiment has been successful, barring the loss of one fish, the productivity was not as great as I would have liked so the system will be retired and no doubt transformed into something else in the future.

The greenhouse was a complete failure this year, not just in poor productivity levels, providing a home for more flies than you can possibly imagine. The olive tree has been suffering because, with all the rainfall, the humidity levels went through the roof and it is now covered in mildew like mould. Come the spring it will be relocated to the garden somewhere freeing up the space for my hot-tub project.
I have been helping out with bits for the schools Christmas market again this year. Possibly the worst job to date has been cutting out a pile of little Christmas trees with the jigsaw. Temperatures in the workshop were just hovering above freezing and, after 3 hours work, I could barely feel my fingers or find my tackle to use the toilet. All I have left to do now is to knock out some samosas or Krusti for Fridays big event.

With Christmas rapidly approaching Jane is struggling with the usual present problems for the tiddly peeps. On the brighter side however all of our cards have been written and the UK pile has been dispatched already. Just a few international ones left to post before it's too late.