I Had A Busy Day Planned,

after Diana had left for work,

I know it is a bit early, but a far as I am concerned Christmas starts tomorrow, so upstairs to the man attic and start bring down the decorations,

boxes and boxes of them,

not forgetting the tree, and that was a struggle getting it down the loft ladder!

I started on the garland around the front door, amazingly all of the lights worked,

I even remembered Rudolph and his two friends,

next the tree, and again amazement, all of the lights worked! I did not arranged any of the branches, that will happen tomorrow when Diana is here, as will decorating the garland and the tree,

on to my evening sherry and read,

 I have nearly finished The Naturalist on the River Amazons: A Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel, a bit of a long title, I am up to page 400, what a really good read it is, starting in 1848 the adventurer does exactly what it says in the books full title, one of the many things I love about this book is the author uses not only the English name of the creature he is studying, he also gives the scientific name, which means the reader can establish what individual he is talking about, I can look the creature up on the Internet if the name is not familiar to me, for instance he might be looking at a morpho butterfly, but here is the problem, this genus includes more than 29 accepted species and 147 accepted subspecies, so which one is he talking about? that is what I like so much about this book he gives the butterfly its full name, morpho peleides, so I now know exactly what he is describing, as it happens this particular butterfly is among one of the largest butterflies in the world, with wings spanning from five to eight inches,

the Christmas place mats out as well as the pines cones and bits and pieces that we put a potpourri oil on and the candle decoration,

on to my starter, a couple of onion bhajis,

eyes down and tuck in,

lamb rogan josh, chicken jalfrezi with two types of rice,

for my main course,

I rounded off the meal with grapes and cherries, after Diana called and arrived home, she did not believe I had brought everything downstairs and put up the garland and tree, she was so happy, then was feet up for a chat, a coffee and a Endeavour, before we were off to bed.