Christmas (nearly)

We moved into the big house just a smidgin more than a year ago, and within a very few weeks the road started to blossom with outdoor lights (notionally in celebration of Christmas).  Nearly every house had some.  Fortunately our neighbours are sufficiently august to draw the line at fairly straightforward lights, with the occasional illuminated reindeer,  and leave the waving sleigh-borne Santas, animated elves, exploding nativity scenes and suchlike to others.  One house did sport a laser display on the front, which is a bit near the line for me, but it was only projecting Christmassy red and green dots in tastefully abstract patterns, so not too distressing.  The overall display, as one turned in at the top of the road, looked pretty impressive .  I did try to take pictures, but I'm afraid my budget phone camera found the task next to impossible.  As for us, we managed to unpack one string of lights which still worked and hung it up in the back garden where nobody could see it, which wasn't really much of a contribution to the street vista.  It was pointed out during a neighbourly gathering (in which, I should mention, drink was taken) that although the lovely Jackie and I were excused boots in 2018 because we had only just arrived, we shouldn't expect such largesse in 2019. 

And so to now.  Of course, over the intervening year, I had developed a plan.  I wanted it to be slightly spectacular, without being excessive; contribute some novelty of design; be elegant; consist only of white lights, and be cheap.  Well, cheap-ish, anyway.  We managed to buy a string of icicle-style dangly LEDs in a New Year clearout somewhere at a knock down price, but sadly had to buy some more at full price to fulfil the whole project.  Still, it's Christmas, isn't it?

Since our house is right at the bottom of the road (and the hill), I thought that we would need some height to have any decent impact.  And so I came up with the idea of creating a tall pointy thing going up the whole of the front of the house.  To get it up there, I would need to loop a bit of string (paracord) over the top of the metal-topped gable parapet that sticks up above the roof line.  Then (this was the idea, remember) all I would need to do would be to slip a ring over the strings, attach the centre of the light string, and pull the strings out to either side to raise the loop, and the lights, miraculously up the front of the house.

I have two friends whose occasional hobby is Radio Direction Finding (RDF), which works like this.  One person hides a radio transmitter somewhere in the countryside, and the others try to find it.  It could be anywhere within a radius of about 10 miles, (or maybe more, I'm not sure).  The only clues you get are that it transmits a few blips, very briefly, every once in a while.  This results in people roaring around the place in cars, and then on foot across whatever terrain is in the way, following tiny blips using special direction-finding radios that (at least in the case of my two friends) they have designed and built themselves, especially for the purpose.  It can be extremely wet and muddy, and sometimes goes on for many, many hours.  Obviously, the person hiding the transmitter makes it as hard to find as possible - under an upturned boat on a tiny island in the middle of a river, in one memorable case.

Anyway, the RDF can only guide you to the transmitter's antenna: so a common ploy is to use a very long piece of wire and hide it in the top of trees. To do this, (I am reliably informed) the best method is to shoot a toy arrow from a toy bow over the trees, with fishing line attached, and then pull the antenna across.  This technique then, is proven technology, toughened in the white-hot frenzy of RDF combat, and tested many times over in a genuine field.

So I didn't do that.  I did mention to the lovely Jackie that I was considering making a bow for the purpose, and she was just a little bit scathing, so I put that idea on the shelf.  I even considered buying one (heaven forbid!), but it's hard to tell what you will need to shoot over a house, so I thought I'd just try some other ideas instead.

First was throwing.  I made a monkey's fist (it's a knot designed for throwing) and tried throwing that - too weak, can't throw it far enough.  I tried throwing it from the top of a ladder - can't really put the required effort in up there.  I tried using a juggling ball on the end of paracord instead - no better.  Hmmm.  Next I tried casting it using a telescopic fishing rod with an additional fibreglass rod and wire loop taped on the end - about 3 metres long in total.  Possibly the juggling ball was too heavy... certainly the whole thing was comically floppy and dangerously uncontrollable.  And the paracord got tangled at the end somehow.  Then I had a go at using just the fishing rod, but with a genuine pulley taped to one end and a bit of alloy tube to the other, from a ladder, intending to loft the ball gently up the slope of the roof behind the parapet in a nice controlled slide.  Somewhere in all this I did manage to get the thing over the apex - hoorah! - but it hooked up on something along the ridge and I had to start again.  Then I got it over in the right place, but for some reason the ball wouldn't roll down the other side properly, even as I flicked the paracord satisfyingly up above the ridge.  All too soon it was dark, so I gave up for the night and consoled myself with the marvellous company of the lovely Jackie.  And wine.

Next day, I wandered into the garage looking vaguely for inspiration, and found I it!  Next to the windsurfer masts, (too heavy to wield) I found a hang-glider keel tube - superlight aircraft quality alloy, about 50mm diameter, and about 3.5m long.  I taped the trusty fishing rod to it with the last section unused (for maximum stiffness), and created a wielding rod of some 6m total length which could reach right over the ridge (from the top of the ladder).  Finally I was able to drop the ball over the front of the parapet on the far side of the ridge in (almost) complete control.  Back down the ladder, and I now have my loop in place with the paracord ends on the ground.

So... pulling the strings apart worked - up to a point.  Not really well enough, with the lights attached.  The angles mean that you need to pull from really high up on either side to make it climb above 7m or so.  Fortunately, my 6m pulley-pole was just long enough to feed to strings back over the parapet and round the end at the bottom of each side (without the use of ladders).  This gave the required high points to pull from, and I was able to haul the whole caboodle within a few feet of the top; lights, extra string loop and all.

I used the extra string loop to haul up the centre of the icicle string part way.  I had to drill holes in the house for screws to attach the ends of the light strings - oh well.  Then there was a lot of left over light string which I draped across the projecting front features of the house in a more or less horizontal way.  And then it was dark again - which was OK, because I could turn them on at last!  Here's what we got...

The lovely Jackie, with moon.  Oh, and Christmas lights.

Definitely got a sort of Christmas tree vibe going, I think.  I think next door's kids like it, anyway, and I feel that we have now done our bit for the local community.  The house does look as if it's been attacked by a giant spider by daylight though.  Not to mention the ecological cost of all this frivolity - please!  No really - please don't mention it.  After all, it is Christmas (nearly).