And it continued to rain on Friday.  Nothing new there, you may thing. It hasn't properly stopped raining for months. The dilemma was that Saturday was the Tupton Carnival  (street parade, then a fair in the afternoon) and it would be a great pity if that had been rained off. I suppose that you can have a parade in the rain, even in torrential rain - but they usually have the fair on the school playing fields and that might not be a whole lot of fun in knee deep mud.

Fortunately, however, Saturday dawned bright and fair. You might almost have thought it was summer!  The Carnival was safe!  It was, in fact, so bright and sunny, and the birds were all so excited by this that I was awake by about half past four and up by about quarter to six.  On a Saturday!  (I realise that the sun does not shine directly in through our bedroom window but at some points in the year it shines onto our neighbours' bathroom window and is reflected back into our room.)  So by half past nine I had done some washing and hung it out, I had washed up Friday night's dishes and cleaned the kitchen.  I had cleaned the shower and the bathroom sink. I had made the bed and done the ironing and many other oh-so many useful things.

The Tupton Parade starts at 1:00 so they close most of the roads that we might want to drive along at around 12:30. So we wombled off and did a bit of shopping and then went and investigated a new Farm Shop that opened fairly recently near us and were back at home in plenty of time before the roads closed.  And just after 1:00 a lovely little parade came down Queen Victoria Road, accompanied by brass bands and tractors and children's groups on little floats and all sorts of things.  There was a jolly, Olympic theme to many of the floats this year.  The Builder watched it from our front window, and I went out and propped against the garden wall to watch. And the people who had come down the hill, confidently expecting to drive through to the highway, or to Wingerworth, or to wherever it was they were going, perforce also had to stop and watch (they seemed entirely happy about this).

So that was all rather lovely.

What was also rather lovely was that at one point on Saturday morning, while I was pottering around in the kitchen, I heard the back door open, then I heard a small clunk, then I heard the back door close again.  I went to investigate.  And there, sitting on the kitchen mat, was a small box with my name on it.  And in the small box was --- THE WIRELESS ROUTER!!!!!!!!!

So I prepared another couple of lions to griddle (setting up the previous router had been a nightmare of epic proportions). And found that the lions were surplus to requirements.  The router had come with our account details pre-installed.  All I needed to do was plug it in.  And a few minutes later it was ready to receive new laptop friends.  And even that is considerably less of a palaver than getting devices attached to the previous router.  The Builder is delighted!!!  He really, really doesn't like my laptop at all.  I think, when I eventually get around to upgrading it, that I will not offer it to him :-D

Sunday dawned bright, shiny, sunny, warm - and as early as it had dawned on Saturday. So I got up and did more washing, more ironing, more cleaning, more hanging out of the washing. And I made a lemon and tarragon stuffing for the Sunday roast chicken, and a sponge cake with whipped cream and stewed gooseberries. I podded the peas and beans that The Builder had gathered in while he collected a large bowlful of raspberries.  By the time The Builder sat down to watch the Grand Prix I had got the chicken on to roast, the potatoes on to simmer and the vegetables on to steam. By 6:00 in the evening I was more than ready to declare the day over.  All of these early starts are quite tiring!!! (The downside to early to rise and early to bed means that I tend to wake up around about half past three, convinced that it's time to get up and of course - it isn't!!)

And still the sun shines. I have been very brave today and worn summer clothes.  And sandals. I head out of buildings, braced for it to be cold, and find it is strangely warm.  And there are children jumping around in the water features around SHU and down by the station.  Someone has put (quite solid) table tennis tables down by the station - and people are playing table tennis on them. Although I am not sure where they get the bats and balls from.  As I said - anyone would think it was summer :-D