Marathon day

A contemplative image from this morning; the rest of the day was very different.
The owl resides on a neighbouring street, at least for the moment. A friend who lives in the house opposite the tree has been letting me know when the box is occupied. Today I finally had time to nip over and get a good view - what a pleasure.
Meanwhile, Richard and his sister Diana spent the day in Accident and Emergency, as D was having some sudden dizzy spells. All tests came back clear, however, and so it may just have been exhaustion.
I met Ruth for lunch, and took Luca home with me; R is off to Barcelona for a rare weekend off, staying with a friend who lives there. Luca and I then picked Eben up from school, and we all went back to Ruth and Josh's house, J being due home earlyish from work.
As we were waiting for Josh, there was a strange buzzing sound in the house and all the lights went off. J came home soon afterwards, and went into the cellar to investigate. It was full of smoke. Aargh...! Something adjacent to the fuse board had blown out, and there was a stench of burning.  A call to the power company emergency line led to calling out the fire brigade, on their instructions.
Luca and Eben were mightily impressed when 3 fire engines arrived, disgorging numerous firefighters in full kit. Apparently calls to possible house fires require a certain number in attendance. They used thermal imaging to check the cellar, and fortunately found no signs of any continuing fire.
I took L and E home to ours for tea and a sleepover, leaving Josh with the much less pleasant task of waiting for the power company to come and replace the damaged kit. All was well by the end of the evening.
All in all, we've been well looked-after by emergency services today :-)