And here he is again!

Look who Father Christmas brought us this year!

Well, Giles actually, but we're not splitting hairs. And it looks as if he is staying.

(NB If you are of a sensitive disposition, you may prefer to watch this video clip with the sound turned down.)

Is it time to go back to bed yet?

No doubt you will have looked at the title of this post and assumed that alcohol was flowing freely last night chez Jennyta and that I am now suffering the inevitable results. In fact, that is not the case. Yes, we enjoyed a couple of glasses of 'rouge' but were in bed by eleven, the reason being that, as in November, the neighbourhood was populated by idiots with nothing better to do with their time and money than waste it on extremely noisy fireworks, starting at 6.30pm and ending at around 2.30am. The inevitable result of this was that Paddy got progressively more disturbed as the night went on and he didn't stop barking until three o'clock this morning, by which time, we were so wound up that it took us a further hour to get to sleep. Well, I say 'us' but Keith was evidently asleep long before me because he was snoring!

So this morning, having finally surfaced at ten o'clock, I dragged myself out on dog-walking duties in the pouring rain and now I'm back at home seeking refuge in a mug of strong coffee and wondering how many hours before I can decently go back to bed.

Now, what would make this day even more brilliant than it already is? Ah yes, Keith watching wall to wall 'Scrapheap Challenge' on TV -  which he is already doing! Fantastic!

I am just hoping that the day so far is not in any way a taste of the rest of the year!

Happy New Year, everyone.

The monitor

A few months ago, Elder Daughter bought Dad a new, flat screen monitor for his desktop computer as she thought he could do with a better and clearer image. When they got it home, hey presto, it was faulty and had to go back. The shop didn't have another in stock so she got her money back and bought one online instead. Unfortunately, it was delivered to her house in Sheffield instead of Dad's house in Bristol so it has taken until now to get it in the right location and it was down to me to set it up.

So far, so good, except that Dad needs the dimmest setting to suit his eyes.

On this monitor, there were about four choices, one setting for gaming, another for video-viewing etc and then an economy one, which, as it provided the dimmest setting of all, was the one I chose.

Fast forward to last evening, when I reminded Dad that he needed to try it out and make sure it suited him, which he went off to do, coming back fifteen minutes later to say that it was hurting his eyes.

Off I went into the dining room to see what I could do...

Two hours later, I was still fiddling about with it and getting increasingly exasperated. Dad backed rapidly out of the room, wearing his hard hat and left me to it, just after I had expressed a wish to hurl the thing out of the window.  Then Keith rang,

"Why didn't you ring me to help?" he asked when I explained my difficulty.

So, there followed a further half hour of me explaining the settings and menus available on the monitor and bemoaning the fact that, for some reason, I couldn't access the brightness and contrast options to change them and Keith flatly contradicting me and telling me that I MUST be able to, maybe I wasn't doing it properly. 

Unsurprisingly, we made no progress and I spent the night wondering how to break the news to Kathy that Granddad was not going to be able to use the monitor.

Up at the crack of dawn this morning, I spent a further hour doing battle and then, having run out of options, I decided to restore the default settings and, guess what! I was suddenly able to reset the brightness and contrast, It seems that option is not available if the monitor is on economy setting.

Of course, they didn't bother to mention that in the instructions.

Well, that would make it too easy, wouldn't it?

Decorated dog

Paddy's only concession to Christmas...

What's for dessert?

We went over to meet up with Kathy and Claire and to see Paul and his brother, Nathan last weekend. Keith generally takes the opportunity on such occasions to fill his face partake of any delicacies available and this time was no exception.

(In case you are wondering, it arrived with three spoons and he did have help demolishing it!)

You know that meat in the fridge?

This video of the 'talking dog' was featured on Breakfast TV this morning and Keith greeted me with it when I came down this morning. Of course, the next step was to line Paddy up for a few lessons. After all, if a German Shepherd can do it, so can our little mutt.
Wrong.
"Paddy," I said, as he sat obediently in front of me, "you know that meat in the fridge?"
Paddy shook his head firmly and wandered off to lie on his cushion.
A bit more practice, I think.

Stonehenge and Wales

This article on the orgins of some of the stones at Stonehenge reminds me of the sterling research Keith carried out, which he told me about a few years ago.
Remember, you read it here first.