FreeSat again

Keith is grief-stricken.

This is because we now have FreeSat, which is good because it gives us access to local Welsh news, as I said in a previous post and we can also now watch S4C, which I shall, of course, be watching avidly in a couple more weeks when I am fluent in welsh. (Oh, all-right then, in about twenty years, if you want to be pedantic about it!)

But, these advantages notwithstanding, Keith is still not a happy bunny. I, on the other hand, was utterly delighted when I made the discovery. What am I talking about? We can't get channel 12 on FreeSat!

Channel 12, as any male reader from these shores will know, is the boring one, the one which shows an unbelievably huge quantity of war programmes and then more war programmes. What is it with men? Why are they so obsessed with re-living life in the 1940's? Of course, Keith has other channels to choose from, where he can watch black and white war films, programmes about men running about expending inordinate amounts of energy making weird vehicles from scrap vehicles, programmes about men knocking down chimneys and building traction engines in their back gardens... the list is endless. But channel 12, the 'Yesterday' channel is his favourite.

So, to avoid his drowning in a pool of tears like Alice in Wonderland, we have now agreed that, with a few twists of the wrist, he can access channel 12 via the TV's own freeview, whenever he feels the urge...

which, of course, is far too often to suit my viewing habits!

A Mother's Story: Seeing Paul

A Mother's Story: Seeing Paul

Why teachers drink

Second attempt! This was sent to me by someone I went to school with who, like me, is now happily retired. I did try to copy it as all the comments were in the children's original handwriting, but in the end, I had to type it instead. If you think they are all made up, you are not a teacher!

In wartime, children who lived in big cities had to be evaporated because it was safer in the country.

The total is when you add up all the numbers and a remainder is an animal that pulls Santa on his slay.

Sometimes in the war they take prisoners and keep them as ostriges until the war is over. Some prisoners end up in consterpation camps

A mosque is a sort of church. The main difference is that its roof is doomed.

I asked my mum why we said old men at the end of prayers at skool. I don’t know any old men apart from grandpa.

On ar activity holiday Dad wanted to ride the hores but mum said they were too ekspensiv.

I would like to be an accountant but you have to know a lot about moths.

The closest town to France is Dover. You can get to France on a train or you can go on a fairy.

If it is less than 90 degrees it is a cute angel.

….and at the end of the show we all sing away in a manager.

In last year’s Christmas concert Linzi played the main prat. I played one of the smaller prats and I would like to have a bigger prat this year.

Helicopters are cleverer than planes. Not only can they fly through the air they can also hoover.

Then Joan of Ark met her end. She was burned as a steak.

Crabs and creatures like them all belong to a family of crushed Asians.

In geography we learned that countries with sea around them are islands and ones without are incontinents.

If you marry two people you are a pigamist, but morons are allowed to do this.

Sir Walter Raleigh circumcised the world with a big clipper.

In Scandanavia, the Danish people come from Denmark, the Norwegians come from Norway and the Lapdancers come from Lapland.

Apologies

For those of you who were puzzled by the non-appearance of half my last post (now deleted), I'm afraid, for some reason, I just couldn't copy and paste or save it so that it would appear on the post, no matter what I tried. If I manage to solve the problem, I'll try again...

FreeSat

Recently, Keith and I have decided to get rid of our BT Vision, buy a £25 viewing card to use with our Sky box and stick to FreeSat. One reason is because, every day the BT Vison box becomes strangely unresponsive for a couple of hours but the main reason is that we are not able to get Welsh news. When BBC goes to the local station, for us it is deemed to be North West, rather than Wales.( In Chester, meanwhile. since the digital switchover, their main local station became - yes, you've guessed it - Wales!)

So this morning Keith rang BT and said we would like to terminate our contract for BT Vision.

"No problem," said the girl on the other end of the phone, "We can do that for you from October 25th."

According to my diary, 25th is next Tuesday but, with unerring efficiency, Keith had barely put the phone down when, hey presto! all our recorded programmes had disappeared and we no longer had access to 'on demand' or 'replay'. 

Let's hope they are equally efficient in adjusting our bill!

Paddy's walk

Today is one of those days when you just know you are going to have to get out the gloves and scarves very soon and argue with Keith about when to put the heating on. He likes it on sooner rather than later, whilst I benefit from my own personal 'central heating.' Paddy was in one of his 'pulling on the lead' moods, which necessitates frequent stops in an effort to get him to walk at my pace by my side, which, as he should know by now, is what all good, sensible dogs do. When he pulled madly to reach a couple of dogs ahead, he retaliated to being stopped by barking and whining, so all in all, I was quite glad to get home.

Generally, when we get home he gets a small treat. Today, I didn't think he deserved it but I got out his usual dental minty chew stick and he sat there expectantly.

"This is not a treat, Paddy," I explained, "You haven't been good enough today, so this is purely for your dental hygiene."

"Yes, I think he understood that," said Keith.

Radiators

Today is a truly lovely, classic autumn day, the kind where you look up into the cloudless, blue sky and find it difficult to believe the weather forecasts which speak gloomily of forthcoming rain, wind and plummeting temperatures. Paddy had been taken out for his walk and managed to behave like a sane and sensible dog around three westies and a border collie and the rest of the day...

well, the rest of the day could go well or badly, depending on Keith's diy skills.

For several weeks now, I have amused myself by saying, 

"Well, we'll be putting the heating on soon - oh no! We won't because the radiator by the window is still leaking!"

When the hilarity and helpless laughter has died down, I follow this up with,

"The bathroom towels will be lovely and warm when we have our showers this winter - oh no! They won't because the heated towel rail is still waiting to be fitted!"

(You think this is annoying? Yep! But such fun!)

So today, Keith has finally decided that life might be slightly more bearable if he put his mind to the two tasks awaiting him, hence an imminent visit to B&Q and then a degree of nail biting and finger crossing on my part, not due to a lack of faith in Keith's abilities but, well, you never know with diy...