After a successful (if I say so myself) SCD workshop, a day of rest seems to be in order. But even so there are a few little projects to take care of …

The first thing I'm doing today is a small DIY project – the lamp above our dining table (a suspended five-bulb halogen lamp that we rather like) recently started making frightening noises, which led me to suspect that there was an issue with the transformer. I did manage to source a replacement transformer, take down the lamp, install the new transformer, and reattach the lamp to the ceiling, but what was left was connecting the wires – I did most of the job the other night but I prefer doing the electrical work by daylight rather than torchlight when the fuse for the lighting in the living room is switched off.

So I finished this before breakfast today (a 10-minute job including getting the tools ready and clearing them away again) and am happy to say that the lamp seems to be back in working order. It would have sucked to have to replace the whole lamp, because as I said we've become quite attached to it over the years and, from a quick spot check on Amazon, a suitable substitute would probably have been both expensive and difficult to find, and might have entailed visits to various DIY stores and lamp emporiums in the area – time that neither Marie and I are eager to waste. Also, the new transformer, at less than €20, was way cheaper than a new lamp would have been, and I hate drilling holes into the ceiling for hanging lamps.

Other projects today included some cleaning and tidying around the flat (in preparation for our Burns supper next Saturday but also on general principles) and getting the “paperwork” done for yesterday's SCD workshop: Marie wrote the blog post for the FSCDC site (as quoted here in yesterday's entry) and put her, Yulia's, and Sabine's pictures on our file server, and I edited the blog post for publication, added some of the pictures, and uploaded it to the site. (Marie also took care of posting some pictures from the workshop to Instagram, which I don't touch with a long pole.) Sabine also sent us a video of the group dancing Malcolm's dance, Highland Cathedral, and I spent some time fiddling with the audio and adding “tops and tails” (or, a title card and a card with credits at the end) before putting the video up on Strathspey Video. (I may talk about this a little more if there's a day with nothing else to report.)

All in all, a productive day. Oh, and we did manage to get some rest, too!