Portrait of a swan

It has been lovely and warm today, no need at all for a jacket and I cannot believe that I am still wearing sandals in October. I think when the proper autumn weather comes in it will be a shock for us down here in the south who have enjoyed a very warm autumn so far.

A busy morning, changing the bedding and washing linen - actually I only washed the linen, Tommy changes his own bed linen and Gavin did our bed for me. A walk for Xena - where the swan was noticed - it was hissing at Xena if she got too close, this swan has control over the pond and no dog goes near it!

Then off to the hairdresser but back home in time for a late lunch. I had ironing to do this afternoon and then have 'enjoyed' the Surrey Friday afternoon traffic as I took Tommy to collect the boys' car (shared by Tommy and Luke) which had a service. As it is about 10 years old it had all sorts of other (expensive) things needing attention. 

Last night I had good news, bad news and some high praise. High praise when Gavin got home from work and had one (or two) of the crunchies I made - his mum was a brilliant baker and she made the very best crunchies, and Gavin said that he felt disloyal saying it but mine were better than hers! High praise indeed! 

Good news was that Luke got the results of the exam he wrote at the beginning of September. He was convinced he had failed as the exams are notoriously tricky to pass - this year only 44% passed but thankfully he passed and was a fraction below the top 90% percentile. Now the last stage of qualifying, level 3, will be written next year and then he will be qualified as a Certified Financial Analyst. 

The bad news is that our dishwasher broke last night. It was giving an error code that necessitated a call out by a dishwasher technician. I managed to find a Gaggenau technician who is coming to repair it tomorrow, so fingers crossed it can be easily fixed.