As the sun rose over our peak district cottages two rolls of carpet were finally delivered.  The handyman was up early to ferry the carpet from the bottom f the drive to the garage.  Amazingly a lot of snow had already gone which was encouraging bearing in mind that we had guests arriving for the weekend later in the day.  Chris and the handyman cleared an area in the courtyard so they could cut a few pieces of carpet from the roll.  One cleaner up to prepare a couple of cottages.  In the afternoon I tried to order some oil to keep us going over Christmas and the New Year.  In the last few weeks the price has gone up by nearly 50% and usually delivery can be within a few days but with high demand and bad weather delivery could be nearer a week.  Later in the afternoon we drove down to Ashbourne as they had a Christmas Shopping Evening.  It has been a number of years since we last went and the event has expanded.  The main roads were closed (which wasn’t helpful for some of the diverted lorries having to squeeze down the narrow side roads) but this enabled a number of stalls to be set up and also a small funfair.  We first went to the small retail park on the edge of Ashbourne where we visited M&S, Halfords and Majestic Wines, which have not long been open there.  Back in town it was nice to wander the streets and browse some of teh shops, especially the deli’s!  Luckily the streets were quite safe to walk along and after few hours shopping and enjoying a hot pork cob we made our way home.  Guests arrived about 10pm.  Nice to have guests here again!