Winter Solstice.

At last we can look forward to lengthening days. That's definitely something to celebrate even if we are only at the start of winter.

Today the sun returned but with a lot of hazy, high cirrus clouds the sky has been  more pastel than bright blue.

This morning I went to town for a final quick supermarket shop at Lidl. Tempted as I was I didn't go to any of the other shops, better to be on the safe side. The only event of note was going to the car and finding it ...... not there. Though not a Smart car even by UK standards it's quite a small car and disappears when parked between normal cars so initially I thought I was simply looking too far along the line of cars. Sure enough there it was but when I parked my shopping trolley by the boot and pressed the button on the key fob there was no opening click from the car. My next thought was maybe I needed to use the key in the door? but then I realised that it wasn't actually my car. Same make and colour but different number plate. Silly me, but then as I looked along the line of cars mine was nowhere to be seen. Who on earth would steal a scratched little old car? but that seemed the only explanation. Until I remembered I'd parked in the overflow car park. Same corner but a little further along. How daft am I?

Back home I treated the car to a wash. To me a car is just a means of getting from A to B, not a status symbol like the £80K car we watched parking at one of the houses along our road the other day. It is nice to have a shiny car but today's washing was firstly to  ensure that the windows were clean and that getting in and out didn't result in mud on our clothes. The essentials done I did carry on and wash the rest of the car.

Cleaning inside the house is another matter, I have a daily routine and it's nice to have the place clean for Christmas so I'm doing extra this week. I was looking inside some of the remaining unpacked boxes for something I still haven't found when I discovered some clothes I'd overlooked. These included a pair of new black jeans which now fit me (apart from some wobbly bits above the waist) now I've lost weight. I was swanning around in those when I pulled a large cream fleece throw out of a box. Somehow, maybe because I'd washed and brushed it before packing, it shed bits of cream fluff everywhere including over the black jeans. The throw went in a bag until I can give it a proper brush out and the fluff removed from the floor and my jeans. I was able to carry on sorting through the boxes and three large boxes have now been reduced to one and a few extras which was a result.

During the afternoon the builder's lads came round with the fittings for the loft ventilation which they fitted. They'd been working outside all morning and were very grateful for coffee and some of my Christmas biscuits.