Bunfight vs Bert

I don't know that it was truly the absurdly named Bert that brought about today's weather, and I suspect he (why did we get into this nonsense of naming storms?) will have more in store for us yet, but today was the day set for Holy Trinity's Christmas Fair and by the time the town was cancelling the open-air switching on of the lights (far too early, IMO) and the ferries had all gone off it was too late because of all the work that had been done ...

So it went ahead. I have no idea of how much money was raised, but a surprising number of very wet people rolled in, emptied the Tombola stall, bought many cakes and managed to make a good dent in the scones and so on set aside to go with the coffee. In fact, it was all pleasantly sociable, and didn't feel at all like a damp squib from where I stood (at the kitchen sink, since you ask - Himself and I have traditionally been the washers-up for many, many years.) 

So, just to explain the collage: the two right hand photos are of the morning's event - the top when people hadn't actually started arriving for coffee, and the bottom while it was in full flow. The floor isn't full of folk, but the tables are... And the left-hand photo? That's the view from that self-same window that I've fallen back on so often recently, with the dawn only just breaking but invisible beyond the sleet which had plastered itself to the glass in the east wind which was battering the house. (It still is, by the way, but the sleet has turned to rain now.)

And that, O Best Beloved, was my only outing of the day. I was just making toast for lunch when the power went off, happily just after the kettle had boiled, so we quickly made tea and ate the bread untoasted. I peered at a newspaper in the gloom, tried not to look at my phone too much in case I really needed it later. The lights came back on after about 40 minutes, but went off again an hour later. I had by then abandoned all thought of making my Christmas cake, which would have been a sensible way to spend the afternoon, but when the power returned again I put a loaf on to bake in the machine as we were running out of bread. It made it.

So - a peculiarly frustrating afternoon when all I felt I accomplished was to reset my Google password, which seemed to have become detached from my computer. I did some Pilates before dinner in an attempt to remedy some intercostal agony which had assailed me from the morning - have I fallen asleep in an odd position? Who knows. It was very much not my kind of afternoon. 

Now the night is full of rain and wind and I'm calling it a day. The week ahead looks daunting. Night night.