Happy Birthday Linas.

It's Linas' birthday today, 24 years old but I still think of them as my boys.

Linas lives in the city of Plymouth. He graduated from the uni there 2 years ago and we were so very thankful when he finally got a job a few weeks ago. Like a million other young people he has been unable to find any sort of job whether in IT, his speciality, or in any other type of firm. The situation for young people is the worst it has been for 20 years. Albeit only a temporary job it gets his foot on the ladder and even if it doesn't develop into a permanent post he will at least have some experience to put on his CV. So that is the thing I am most thankful for today.

This morning I filled all the draughty gaps under the eaves of our porch with some loft insulation that I bought yesterday. It was on special offer and I've only used a third of a great big roll that cost £3. It is made from spun recycled glass and from the brown colour I'm guessing that it has a high proportion of beer bottles in it. Quite apt as Peter keeps his beer barrel out in the porch. I put heavy curtains over the doors last year which are cumbersome but combined with the insulation should reduce the draughts that can blow in through the porch. After that I gave my car a wash. Not something I do very often but over the last few weeks there has been a lot of mud on the road up by the Lewis' farm. At least half a mile of thick mud and my poor car has been turning brown from the bottom upwards. They seem to have finished whatever work they were doing in the fields and have scraped the worst of the mud off. Even so after one journey my clean car is shading brown again. At least I can get in and out of the car without getting mud over my trousers. Finally I used some proper curtain wire in the curtain under Romas' sink to finish the job off properly.
At school we had the first official performance of the Christmas Play. The shepherds were better behaved today. It seems that once again I shall be playing a few carols for the Nativity service so there will be lots of practice at home so that hopefully I won't mess them up in front of children, staff and parents.

Some of the sky looked quite pretty this evening. The wind is getting up again, last night it was roaring through the trees and the rain & hail were clattering on the windows.