Christmas clean up again

It started off as quite a nice day yesterday,  washing out on the line early,  then came a few spots of rain - just enough to get the washing put into the tumble drier - then we had a heavier shower, but after lunch it cleared up and we were back to blue skies and a nice sunny walk up to Yegen.

During the morning I got the Christmas decorations out and put the tree up on the terrace as normal,  it looked really pretty even in daylight and even better at night.

Then at about 5 o'clock the sky went  dark,  a breeze started,  then it went windy, and windier,  and windier.  We did our usual batten down the hatches routine,  stacking chairs,  moving garden tables to a safer place - we know just what to expect now.  And boy,  did the wind blow last night!!!  It battered and howled round the house from sunset till sun rise.  It kept me awake for much of the night,  I laid there wondering where we'd find stuff this morning.  Would the tree still have any decorations left?  What about the angel on the top - where would she have ended up?  The tree itself is bolted down onto a secure base so that didn't concern me,  and we've had windy nights before when the tree has been up,  but there's a first time for everything!

As it happened, the angel had only fallen under the tree,  a few ornaments had come unhooked and were also on the floor,  but what a lot of leaves everywhere!  Every corner of the terrace,  under the table, down the stairs, in my trainers, I eventually swept up a sackful!  And then another sackful floating on the pool, the carefully stacked chairs were definitely not stacked any more and weren't far away from falling in the pool with the leaves.  The table was upside in a flower bed,  the watering cans had blown down a terrace - and we'd left them full up so they wouldn't move.  I have no idea what strength the wind was and am just so glad that although it lasted for 12 hours or so,  it doesn't happen very often.

So that's why it's clean up day again.  I was going to make mince pies this morning but will do them tomorrow instead.

And if I don't get time to write between now and next Wednesday - a very happy Christmas to everyone.