Too long

 Winter Solstice, the short day, somebody forgot to tell Rock HQ. Yesterday I had planned to go and do a quick (not really quick, but quick by my standards) mountain marathon, but as Gerry had a meltdown and my 12 hour or so trip to Durham turned into a 36 hour stopover, all Wednesdays tasks were shoved along to Friday pm which meant a very long day but Gerry behaved and brought me back from our 125 mile recce of the Welsh Valleys where I met some lovely people and scoffed most of their biscuits (I need the sugar!) No matter how hard I tried to catch up the jobs list just got added to and time is running out before the fat bloke (not me) drops off gifts to the apprentice smallholder and rugrat mkII.

 As ever, once one problem is sorted the small god of your having a laugh throws a cosmic spanner in the works and this was the scene at the back of Miranda after Chester decided to do a spot of mechanicking. Unsure why he felt compelled to break the lights and dent the rear quarter but he did so he's not in the good books. He got an even bigger entry in the how much can a horse be a pillock book for losing his coat. Somehow over night he wriggled out of his nice red heavy duty winter coat which meant a quick trip out today to fetch a new one.

Our short day started at 05.30 with a phone call from Techno who was not in a good way. Having seen him the night before I was relieved to find it wasn't the food I had given him that was causing him distress and after a protracted effort involving 3 trips around the bonsai mountain to his lair I managed to coordinate the NHS on call system (whoever thought of the system wants a kicking, dial 111 get told this service is not available in Wales, redial new number, talk to machine, tell machine location, get told service no longer available in England, dial 111, go back to start, have a SOHF, go back home and dial again, get told that they need the patient to talk to, tell them he is up a mountain, advised to take mobile, tell them the scenario re service no longer available, finally speak to a sensible person who decided to phone Techno, if I went and got his permission) to make contact, they realise he needed medical help, they send out a very brave and well equipped Doctor and I fetch his medical supplies from Town. Having seen what was prescribed he is no doubt having a wonderful time sat in his cave watching pink elephants chase cosmic badgers across the sky. All this meant that today's jobs (sense a pattern here?) have got to be done tomorrow as one of them involved filling the skip with rubbish for collection Monday.
A quiet normal life?
Yes please.