Diana Had Already Left For Work,

before I made my way to the bus stop,

a glorious day, not a cloud in the sky,

the two new saplings,

still here, hopefully the vandals will leave them alone this time,

bus to the bank opposite the war memorial,

and the Odeon cinema, money transferred, club subscriptions paid for another year,

next stop Lidl,

to buy a joint for the weekend, spiced rum and a few other bits and pieces,

also some flowers,

we were fine for the tree, arriving home and then a call from Diana, we had arranged to meet on the 54 bus and travel to Charlton, and it worked! as the 54 approached I could see Diana was on board, 

we never expected to see one of these in front of us, a step on step off Routemaster, brought in to replace the electric trolley bus, I remember in the early 1950s my grandmother and myself travelling on these totally silent trolley buses, and no exhaust fumes!

we soon passed the Catford cat,

looking at the other side of the sign,

past Lewisham market,

normally when we go to Greenwich we alight here and walk across the heath, but today we join the queue of traffic waiting to go up the High Street,

and the traffic was bad,

past the church,

and about 25 minutes later here we are, at Charlton House,

a quick pose,

and a first look at the house, which was built between 1607 and 1612 for Sir Adam Newton, who was tutor to Henry, Prince of Wales - the eldest son of James I, 

Charlton House is one of the finest surviving Jacobean manor houses in England,

at the front of it some stalls,

we were both a tad hungry,

so the hot dog stall it was then,

delicious!

the sun was going down,

as we went inside to have a look around, it has a small library,

normally pre-covid it is a learning center,

with a number of computers for use of students,

although not yet open except for events like this, I had to have a sneak look at one of the ornately carved staircases,

next outside for carol singing, we all had song sheets, lots of local families with a electric organ and the local vicar leading the singing,

followed by the countdown to lighting the tree lights, 

as you can see and hear in the above video, the kids, as you can imagine enjoyed joining in in the 5-4-3-2-1, (as did a lot of the parents!),

ta-dah! the tree was lit, 

Diana joined the queue inside for our hot coffees, 

before having a last look around,

where I spotted this beauty,

we found a bench to sit down a sip our coffees in the garden, followed by a walk to the bus stop and home,

in the evening Diana put up the last of our tree decorations,

with the Christmas angel on top, I missed Monday's Hornby, but the episode was being repeated this evening, this one about remodeling the Intercity 125, so named because the trains cruising speed was 125MPH between cities in the UK, we followed that with a Lewis and a New Tricks, I hate to say it, but there will only be this one post today, yesterday I started to get a tooth ache, at 02.00AM I was up eating paracetamols as fast as I could! I had a terrible nights sleep, first thing I telephoned the dentist who had a cancelation, so now I am off to the dentist, and with that we were off to bed.

Some Of The Rate Payers In Durham,

seemed a bit upset,

when they found out that the chairwoman and vice chairwoman both receive a clothing allowance on top of their official salaries, in the case of councillor Linda Marshall she receives £8,580 and councillor Pauline Charlton receives £4,280 allowance for their clothes, taking the case of  Linda Marshall she receives a tad under £20,000 a year for her civic duties, so I guess the £8,580 extra she receives for clothes does seem like a lot, but here is an idea of mine for the cash flush Durham County Council that has refused to axe the perk, I am sure my idea will make everyone in this rich borough happy,


use the total of £8,580 and the £4,280 that both ladies receive and send them here to Thailand, I have just looked on last minuet dot com and a holiday out here starts at about £800 each for a week, the tailors out here would love to see them, with the roughly £11,000 money that is left from the clothes allowance both ladies would have the finest Thai silk dresses that would last them for both their terms of office and give the money that is left over back to the council, well I thought it was a great idea!

We Were Early To Put The Tree Up,

and I guess early to pull it down,

which kept Diana busy for some time, for the rest of the day we took things easy, in the afternoon we watched the usual Christmas/New Year offering on television of Ben Hur, the 1959 Charlton Heston version, in the evening we were spoilt for choice, but decided on a couple of our usual television series, one each from Midsomer Murder and Endeavour, rounding off the evening with one from New Tricks, with the end of that we were of to bed.

I Decided To Do A Little Maintenance,

on the aquarium,

 starting with a clean of the protein skimmer, and then the insides of the glass, I then had some really good news, a few months ago I started getting a pain in my left upper leg, eventually bad enough that it woke me up at night, so a few days ago I went to the doctors, where I was given an examination and with a printed out form told to to go straight away to the local hospital to have my upper leg X-rayed and a number of blood samples taken, results in 10 days, to say I was worried was an understatement, but 3 days later, today, I had a call form the doctor, nothing untoward was found, it seems that a number of nerves have decided for no apparent reason to make themselves felt, the x-rays and blood work showed no abnormalities, thank heavens for that! I have a rub jelly that hopefully will take care of the ache,

 so to celebrate it was off to the local supermarket,

where I stocked up with,

 several boxes of wine,

 in the evening it was time for a read,

 and a glass of sherry,

 for tonight's meal, a turkey salad, 

 'Cheers!',

 I then took a couple of photographs of the box fish, who has settled down really well, looking at me,

and side view,

 and here he is waiting for a feed,

between the regal tang and the flame angel,

 I continued reading Unlikely Stories, Mostly, but I have to admit I got a bit bogged down with Logopandocy, for a thesis of Alasdair Gray's work here is one by Bruce Graham Charlton MBBS, I decided to take a break from Alasdair Gray, and started another short story which I will make a separate post about, just after midnight Diana called to say she was on the bus home, so off to the bus stop, and in no time we were back home, where I gave her the good news about myself from the doctor, we had a quick nightcap and then for us we were off to bed.