Advent Calendar 1 - Bling Night

On the occasion of Bling Night, all Beaker Folk traditionally gather to celebrate the forthcoming Yule, and fight against their terror of encroaching darkness, by lighting the Great House, Moot House and surrounding outbuildings with as much bling as the National Grid will sustain.
This has not always been without its problems.  A few years ago, we discovered that the lights had been DI'ed into the overhead cables without the benefit of a substation.  Another occasion, I fell through the thatch in the Moot House while dealing with an overdose of illegal bling.  Took me weeks to have all the straw removed.  And on another we had a near miss when a pilot mistook Big Meadow for the runway of Luton Airport.
But this year we thought we had it sussed.  Mara and Kara, our twin air-heads, convinced me that they had installed enough sustainable energy sources to enable us to enjoy the lights without costing the earth, in either sense.  OK, we're down one Moot House at the moment, but even that has its upside, as the insurance payout has come through and is surprisingly generous.
And it looked lovely when it was all up.  The illuminated inflatable George Hamilton, the illuminated inflatable penguins, the inflatable giraffes (we weren't sure about those, to be honest), the illuminated inflatable Santas and polar bears and dwarf helpers.  The inflatable Katie Price we were less keen on, so we explained we weren't going to pay her to switch them on and she went away again. But there were strings of white lights, chains of coloured lights, blue LED icicles and everything else we could possibly want to celebrate the birth of a homeless 1st century Jewish child.  And behind it all, gently revelling in its obvious immense delivery power, the giant screen of photovoltaic cells that were delivering the green electricity.

So we've a lovely display of Yule lights.  The best you could ever hope for.  They flash, they chase each other across the roof.  George Hamilton's suntan changes from a light fawn colour to the deepest mahogany and back over a five minute period.  Santa shouts "Ho Ho Ho" and the snowmen do a little dance.  As long as the sun's out.
Now, I blame myself, obviously.  Knowing Mara and Kara's reputations.  I should have checked.  I should have asked where they were storing the electricity ready for the evening's bling.  I should have realised they had just plugged the solar panels straight into the lights.  But there's nothing for it.  Once we're sure everyone's gone to bed, we're just going to have to connect it all up to the overhead cables again.

In the meantime, many are taking the opportunity this year to mark the month with an Advent calendar.
In a similar spirit, the image at the top of this post is our photo of the Great House after we switched the Bling on this evening.  I hope it will give you many moments of quiet, contemplative post-modernism as you look at it and try to spot Hnaef lighting a tea-light in one of the corners.