Official start!

Up early to beat the incoming weather today. Rain was forecast between 12 and 1pm - it arrived at 12:30. An accurate forecast for once.

The morning was spent washing cars - not sure quite why because I know they'll be as bad in a few days. Gail's car however, was nearly black all over. For a red car this is not a good sign. Just going close to it caused the muck to leap off and onto your clothes so it did really need doing.

The outside christmas lights went up next, and finally, the Christmas tree was dressed ready to go indoors. It had spent a few days in the conservatory before embarking on its journey inside. Just needed a little trimming of the trunk to expose some new wood that will hopefully take up some water and prevent all the needles leaping off onto the floor. Simple job. Plain hard work cutting unseasoned wood. Dangerous work too - A moments inattention, saw slips, deep cut on finger, blood, pain, ouch!

Jamie & Jonathan were then designated the tree ornament, lights and tinsel installation team. On reflection, this may not have been the best idea, but they do need the practice as well as something to get them off the PCs/games etc. Their decorating technique is somewhat akin to emptying the boxes and then throwing much of it at the tree and hope it sticks. At least they did it without too much complaining and little reaction to the joking criticism aimed in their direction :-)

The image is a 10 image stack using Helicon Remote for the taking, Helicon Focus for the stack processing and a little tweak and crop in PS.

Jonathan, sat watching the Spurs/Liverpool match by now, asks me why I'm taking lots of the same photo? Magic I think is the answer. He was intrigued as Helicon Focus did the magic.

All the decorations are now up - Christmas has officially started.