Day Sixty Four

Festis 

We held a surprise early morning raccoon suppression deployment this morning.

And we were glad to report nothing amiss today. Thank goodness.

When we returned home Dugal was helping the ladies to ready themselves for their day.

It is the week of the enormous Gala.

So as you can imagine Zita is as busy as can be.

Niamh, having only slightly recovered from her weekend revelries made it to her early morning class with time to spare. 

Dugal and I went to Whole Foods for breakfast croissants to bring home.

Furrgus stayed home.

As we have learned our lesson about leaving the house without an adequate garrison.

We had barely finished cleaning up when Craig appeared. 

And after exchanging the morning’s pleasantries we retired to our morning nap. Lulled by the sound of Christmas carols. 

It is that time of the year.

When we awoke Craig was already on his second coffee and a peanut butter sandwich.

We still had nearly fresh croissants available so Furrgus and I carefully put them in our sporrans and went for our afternoon constitutional. 

It was not as warm as one might have hoped for, but still decidedly temperate for a December here in the wilderness. 

Craig is now obsessively checking the front steps for parcels to be delivered. 

It a fine example of poor planning Emmet and Niamh have exactly the same birthday date and it is less than a fortnight before Christmas.

So there is always a mad scramble by everyone to get the appropriate presents for whom and for when. 

We had expected better that Craig and Zita I must say. 

Now we have trusted our presents to His Majesty’s diplomatic bag, to ensure speedy and on time delivery even to the far reaches of Mull. 

Being addressed to Morag, Marchioness Tullochgorm of Bute precludes the possibility of silly questions. 

As Zita is downtown every day until the denouement of her events we are preparing for less nutritious dinners. 

So we have contacted our local favourites to confirm their hours of business. 

We would not wish to be caught up short in Craig’s limited dinner repertoire I must say. 

Canned soup is a joyous treat after a month or so sitting in the Khyber, but with delicious abundance within waking distance it does rather fall short. 

So we decided to be prepared and made tentative reservations at several locations. 

It was pitch dark when we got home from our dinnertime patrol. 

Fortunately it is only another two weeks until winter solstice and things begin to brighten up again. Thankfully. 

Dugal managed to stay awake while we were out. As did Craig.

He had been entertaining Paul while we were out. 

The fresh whiff of croissants was still in the air.

Craig was in the den listening to his new book. 

Zita walked home from work as Niamh is at the university until late and needed the car.

So by the time Zita got home it seemed to be the right time to finish off the remainder of the eggnog. 

And start on the sausages for tonight’s dinner. 

Then when Craig and Zita went to watch their mystery program we got out the felt tablecloth for our Mah Jong tournament.