We Had A Few Things To Do Today,

and being near to Christmas it was time to put up the tree,

so first stop to the bank, my usual lament, 'where does all the money go!'

then the post office, on the way back I took this shot of the other side of the codo for sale next to the immigration office,

next stop 3BB in Thepprisit Road, much better service than the satellite for connecting to the Internet that I had - and half price, but they seem to be forgetting to post the monthly bill, or it goes missing in the post,

it is in the weekend market area, this is what it looks like in the day time, normally on the weekend evenings this area is covered in stalls,

next stop fish food at the fish and cheep shop, they sell fish and birds!

whilst there I spotted some Cuckoo Catfish, Synodontis multipunctatus, it has a strange way of breeding, hence it's name, in Lake Tanganyika the catfish waits for a pair of fish, cichlids to spawn, as they do so the catfish lays its eggs so that the cichlid takes the eggs into it's mouth to incubate them and keep them from being eaten by other fish, the catfish eggs hatch quicker than the fish eggs, the catfish fry then eats the eggs that the 'cuckoo' fish, it's own, is looking after, strange thing is many years ago I was SCUBA diving in Lake Tanganyika, fishing, looking and finding new species when I saw this behaviour before my very eyes, back to the shop I gave this guy the shock of his life when I took his picture, although silent when the flash of the camera went off he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the flash!

then home and time to make a start on the Christmas decorations, Diana starting on the inside,

and me making a start on the outside,

place extension lead along the fence,

and put lights on our 'Christmas' tree,

in reality a Norfolk Island pine, Araucaria heterophylla, yes it does have sharp spines!

Diana then decided not to have 'dancing lights' as she calls them, they have a multi switch that changes the flashing display through 10 different sequences,

then back to inside to put the presents round the tree,

there, finished, but I think tomorrow we will buy another set of lights for the tree, it looks a little bare,

unlike the tree inside that is packed with lights, yes we got the strings of bulbs mixed, but as they are all working it is better not to disturb them, so a new set for outside tomorrow,

then after our evening meal some fresh strawberries to snack on,

having bought a few copy DVD's in the past that were of dubious quality I now buy all of our DVD's on Amazon, strangely enough some of the prices are quite similar, but of course from the UK there are no 'duds', but I had to buy the latest The Tudors, season 4, it was a gamble I know but we enjoyed the others so much, the good news so far all is well, we settled down and watched the first three episodes, they were absolutely brilliant! the story goes like this,

Henry is proud of Katherine, his beautiful, vivacious seventeen year old wife, who buys silence from an old friend by making her a member of the court, Joan Bulmer confides the Queen's sexual history to Lady Rochford who tells it to Culpepper and arranges for him to have a liaison with the neglected Queen, while Henry prepares for a politically important trip to meet the defeated Northern rebels, Queen Catherine carries on her passionate affair with Culpepper, Catherine buys the silence of another indiscreet former lover with a position in her chamber as her affair with Culpepper becomes more tempestuous, by now we all know it is going to end in tears! if you like costume drama with more than a bit of history thrown in, buy, steal, beg or borrow The Tudors, then for us off to bed, then I found out at 4 in the morning I have a job for tomorrow, for some reason I woke up, the outside light which is connected to a motion detector kept coming on, the 'Happy Christmas' banner was blowing in the wind and kept triggering the light, so back to sleep and move the banner tomorrow.