We had a greater spotted woodpecker on our nut feeder today.  But it was lesser spotted on the photographs!  It didn't want to be famous.  We've been getting the cottages sorted for the Christmas influx today.  Which also involved tidying up the reception which had 2 new beds in it for Etive.  As the stairs to Etive are too tight a turn for beds we have to feed them via the cherry picker through the window.  I took some pictures afterwards of the kids having a go on the cherrypicker, you can see the open window.  And while we were at it a sideboard that had been in our livingroom for 6 months went up to be a dressing table in one of the bedrooms up there.  So, it was yet again, moving beds from A to B to C.

We were all recovering today from the great Mountain Rescue Christmas dinner we had last night.  It was held in the village hall, and we had the local hotel doing the buffet food, and then the Strathspey and Reel fiddlers doing the Ceilidh music for dancing.. There was 20 of the group on stage, which is about half of the group.  We seemed to be dancing all night, and everyone here knows the country dances well enough to be able to cope, including the kids who are taught at school. At half past midnight we walked home, admiring the stars and picking out the shapes and the milky way.