The case of the missing lights...

I was awake much earlier this morning - 6.30am! I went downstairs, gave Monty his breakfast and caught up with writing this until 9am. It was still bitterly cold, and we have snow flurries forecast for later today. Maybe we are in for a bad winter with the snow coming so early?

We had put aside the whole of today to put up the Christmas trees, as next Sunday we won't be here. Keith brought everything down from the eaves of the garage, and we fetched some boxes down from our wardrobe. Sophie sorted the decorations out for both trees, and we went in search of the lights, but we couldn't find them...

We searched everywhere - the garage, the wardrobe, boxes in the garage, the drawers under our bed, the drawers in the bedroom, but we couldn't find them anywhere! Where had we put them? We normally put all the Christmas decorations within easy reach in the garage, and Keith didn't think we added the lights to the boxes outside, so it still remains a mystery! Keith and I had to go over to Tesco to buy some more!

To be honest, the new lights seemed to shine brighter, and when Sophie had finished with the trees, they looked beautiful. I hoovered and tidied up, and generally fretted about the new travel restrictions which will come into force on Tuesday.

We had some more leftovers for lunch, and in the afternoon it started to snow quite heavily, and enough to have a covering on the paths and hedges. Unfortunately, our outside lights didn't work either, so we were a bit miffed we'd had so much trouble with the lights this year!

When everything was done I had a look on the Government website and ordered three PCR tests for £35 each. That means we have now spent nearly £200 on tests, which is outrageous and deeply annoying. Our late break is starting to cost us more money than we had anticipated! I also had to cancel Andrea, Fiona and Lynda coming over to us on Friday 10 December as we will have to self-isolate until we get the results of the PCR tests back. I'm hoping that we can take them on Friday and get them back as soon as possible for analysis. I will have to speak to Sara tomorrow and try and swap shifts that week!

To relax, Sophie and I played Scrabble and she narrowly beat me, the little monkey! Keith cooked chicken en croute for dinner, and it was delicious, as ever. Storm Arwen has been causing a lot of damage over the last couple of days, and I'm A Celebrity has been cancelled as the weather caused problems in the castle... oh dear!