By and large a house and garden day. It was very cloudy but still. I took advantage of the lack of breeze to lay more of the weed suppressant membrane on the vegetable patch. I have got to control the ground elder somehow. Fishing line versus deer seems to be working, so here’s hoping for this strategy. I also picked a quantity of leylandia to make my Advent wreath and tonight I lit the first candle. Except I do not have any long red candles so a tea light had to do. Over the years I have accumulated from Germany and Austria all the bits and pieces for making a wreath: sometimes I am lazy and buy one from Aldi but our local shop did not have them this year.

Another great pleasure was a Zoom reunion with 4 university friends, all German graduates, so we are very much attuned to the delights of Advent. To celebrate I cracked open the Lebkuchen.

My Austrian friend Veronika has just sent me a video of 2 of her harp pupils playing an Advent carol, little girls aged about 9 in traditional costume. It is so sweet. I feel quite emotional watching it. A recommendation from Sandy on the Zoom call: an Advent carol sung by Enya.