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Hello, Elle!
18, Mops can be washers, Elle, reversed is pom-pom, an old type of artillery weapon, often used against aircraft..
23, I have protist, too, but have not come across it before.
It fits but I have no idea what it is (did not investigate!)
9d, I would imagine that there is a word "unflappability".
My spell checker is happy with it!
Have you checked Chambers for it?
It is a great day here too, but the temperature is dropping.
I hear the sales are busy in town.
I see Bromley football team are on TV next week, playing Ebbsfleet United.
Are you going to the game?

Hi, Rusty!
We are home from our walk!
We drove over to Crystal Palace Park.... a bad mistake, as "every man and his dog", plus every child and its skateboard, skates and bicycle was also there!
(Nice, though, to see the park being well used, and the children enjoying their Christmas presents, if not the best dog-walking environment!)
The 'sholach trees' contingent has obviously headed back to Scotland!
The "Winter Fest" is still advertised around the park ...and folk showing up to find it a non event!
Disgraceful!
Protista are a big group of one-cell organisms bordering animal and plant life.
I was but quibbling at the definition, which I think is poor!
(Just my opinion!)
Now, I checked for "flappability" in my Chambers... which wasn't there.
I have now discovered that "UNflappability" is!
I didn't even know that Bromley has a football team....and wherever is Ebbsfleet?

Ros and Rusty,
I found this YouTube clip of "pom- pom"s firing during WWII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KsXYK_CNoQ
I hope it works!
( Don't blink though, or you'll miss it! It's over in a flash!)

Hello, Elle!
Snap!
I wondered where Ebbsfleet is, too!
Maybe on the coast with a name like that?
Yes, that "Winter Fest" is dreadful.
Hope your council takes note and does not allow whoever was in charge, anywhere near the place again!
You are entitled to your opinion regarding "protista".
I had never heard of them.
Flappability is a bit like "kempt".
Only seen with a "un" at the start!
Turning cold here!

Update, Elle!
Discovered Ebbsfleet is in North-West Kent.
The team were formerly called Gravesend and Northfleet FC.

Hi, Rusty!
Now I have been doing some investigating....
If I look up "kempt" in my dictionary, it refers me to "kemb"
(of which I have never heard, have you?)
"Kemb" apparently is an obsolete verb (or dialect) meaning "to comb".......and "kempt" is an adjective (from this) meaning "combed; tidy"!
So in days of old, did it go "I kembed my hair, so now I am kempt?
Modern day parlance being "I combed my hair, so now I am tidy?
I like it!
Yes, very cold here, too! I have shut the windows and turned up the heating!

P.S . I have heard of Gravesend!
P.P.S. You might not have seen the reference to the YouTube clip about pom -poms....?
Our posts probably clashed!

Hello, Elle!
I do not know "kemb".
I "kemb" my hair and have a shave in an attempt to look tidy!
Curry combs are used on horses, though.
Yes, I saw the clip about the pom-poms.
I should have said they were mainly used as naval artillery against attacking aircraft.
But you found them.
Another new word for you?

Hi, Rusty!
Oh dear, I need to tidy up my desk (in a corner alcove in the lounge ) on which sits my computer and quite an amassed pile of reference books!
I tend to get out a book to check......before believing what I might read on Google!
Yes, "pom -pom" as in guns is a new word for me, only come across since today's crossword.
I knew "pompoms" without the hyphen!
Fluffy balls worn on woolly hats or shaken about by cheer-leaders!

Hello, Elle!
I'd say your books would often be more accurate than Google.
I knew about the cheerleaders pompoms!
Anti-aircraft fire was usually known as "ack-ack".
Ack was "a" in the British military spelling alphabet.
AA, ACK-ACK, Anti-Aircraft.
I looked up Ebbsfleet.
Apparently they have an International Railway Station.
Not heard of one of those.
It was opened by Dame Kelly Holmes.

Thanks for the clip on pom-poms elle, thanks