Men, Who Needs Them?

Paul departed early Wednesday morning for a bridge tourney in apparently snow and ice-free Iceland. He gets home some time on Monday. The bridge tourney is being broadcast on BBO, but I suspect Paul's team will have to be performing very well to be featured...

This is my sixth scrabble-free day in a row. Chip's Challenge has taken over. I reckon another two or three days before I finish it, and then hopefully I will have regained some enthusiasm for studying.

But today I have done other things despite not sleeping well thanks to Jen and Poncho deciding to howl like the hounds that they are in the early hours. And then this morning Jen decided to have a strop and not come and get her coat and lead on for the morning walk. Normally when this happens she comes running when you open the front door, but not today. So I called her bluff and just took Poncho on a walk. She had obviously done what had needed doing when I had thrown them out the back when I first got up...

Back home and switch the TV on to watch the tennis. Disaster - no satellite signal being received.

Oh well, I had another job that needed doing so no excuse now. We may be having a big thaw but not on our driveway, which still has a couple of inches of ice covering most of it. It was treacherous. So I have now cleared a narrow track from the top to the bottom. I knew Paul's spade was a great birthday present...

Back in and gave the dogs breakfast.

And then set about sorting the TV. Okay - most advice was to put sky+ box on standby. Wait a bit. Power it off. Wait a bit. Power it back on. Hmm - the good old switch it off and on again. Works for most things.

So manual out to check which cable was the power cable. Sorted. Now do I just pull it out of the box or turn it off at the socket. A lot of faffing to determine which of the multiple plugs/sockets/wires/cables at the back of the cabinet was the correct one, involving having to move the TV so that I could actually lean over the cabinet whilst waggling the cable to trace it back to the plug. Right. Pull out what I hoped was the right plug, count to 10, plug it back in. Press TV guide on remote and Hey Presto we have a picture.

Unfortunately I had missed the tennis so TV is switched off again...