Grump

So much for shaving the lawn.

Got weedwhacker to start fairly easily initially, then she noticed how little fuel she had and stopped. Paused and filled her (yes, the two stroke), then spent about 30 min trying to get her to start again. Power was on, clutch was on, pump bit primed, end bit should have been happy, but no start. Quitting now so the blisters on the starter pulling hand don't get worse.

Grump.

Time for that shower now I think.

An evening of pretty lights.

This morning was mostly slept through, appart from the bit where I failed to start the weed whacker (see previous entry).
This after noon was spent far more pleasantly. Headed over* to Mum and Dad's with alpha_angel and decorated the Christmas tree. This consisted of a series of steps.
Step 1: Dig out all the lights and ornaments.
Step 2: Hang lights round the tree and over the rafter. This was done while listening to A Very Scary Solstice.
Step 3: String popcorn. This took 3 people the opening two part length Firefly episode. But got just the right length of popcorn strands to go around the tree.
Step 4: Put on all the ornaments. Often there is a pause for swearing/muttering when one of the old blown glass ones is dropped and breaks (some were Grandmother's), but not this year. There was a pause when we worked out we were missing an extra box of ornaments and had to dig that out.
Step 5: Drape icicle tinsel over everything.Takes a while, but is worth the effort.

Stand back and admire, preferably with the rest of the houselights down low.

This time there was an added hitch that after dinner, the lights on the tree died and we had to take them off (K did a fine job of getting the dead lights out from under everything else without breaking anything). Then we put the longer set of lights in, around and under. But when finally done there was only only a little bit of tweaking required to get some of the glass ornaments in the right places so they caught the lights right and it all looked even better :)

Other bonus of the evening was chasing down something we had thought we had seen last time going down Mum and Dad's driveway. Wandered down before heading off and confirmed that yes, we had seen glowworms** :) Mum was very happy as she had thought that the only easily accessible colony had died off a number of years back.

And then the lights were reflecting gorgeously when heading back around Pauatahanui Inlet :)

Yes, I am easily amused by pretty lights :)

*Heading over was livened up by a crash observed on the way. We had been passed by a speeding police car around Pauatahanui and found out why later as we passed the site. SUV had gone off the road and into a fence, but the horse trailer it had been towing had flipped. One horse out (and at least still standing) and the other still inside. 3 fire trucks, 2 police cars were already there and 2 ambulances arrived as we were going passed. K asked if they needed extra first aid help (we were in the big yellow and blue PEMObile) but at that point, the ambulance arrived so all was under control. Not a good situation. Drive carefully people.

** Ok, Kiddo, I was wrong, you do find them outside NZ. AU does have them in fairly wet areas, though a different species.