Lightning Does Strike Twice

Yet again there were two huge flashes of lightning with matching crashes of thunder and our router and desktop pc were no more. Sound familiar? I checked back. We were last struck in Autumn 2012. Grr! BT told us that we couldn’t protect the phone line into the router but I now understand that you can get surge protectors that also take a phone line. Ours doesn’t and it has cost two routers and two pc’s. Anyway, enough of this. What else has been going on?

Well picking up from last month, I finally got the upstairs tv to work but haven’t used it much because I haven’t wanted to watch much of what has been on. It seems to me that the more channels that are available, the less there is that is worth watching. Moan, moan. Luckily, however, we’ve seen two good films at the cinema (Sunshine On Leith and Gravity) and picked up a Silencers’ concert in Glasgow.  Other notable cultural activities have included a trip to the Tarbert Hotel to hear how work at Tarbert Castle has been progressing and a trip to Carradale for a Fynesiders sing out.

We thought about reverting to our usual Christmas tree rustling after last year’s flirtation with gnarly rhododendron. Then when we re-discovered some sheets of hardboard in Suse’s office, we decided to try some thing different again. When it comes down on Twelfth Night it may have holes cut into it so that the decorations can hang inside them (at least this is what IKEA did with theirs – copy cats!)

I finally decided to treat myself to a wood turning lathe and used it (after a fashion) to complete some of the Christmas presents that were inflicted on some family and friends. The lathe may also have been the catalyst for a meeting of The Shedsiders and there’s more about this and some of the other things which have happened over the Festive period in the second edition of The Glenreasdale Gossip. (Hi res pdf) (low res pdf)  Despite the weather, we had a good time with the neighbours after we got back from Stonehouse where we spent Christmas and became involved in The Great Trifle Controversy.

The controversy probably started two years ago when Richard’s Aunty Pauline shocked trifle connoisseurs in the Coon Family by adding sherry to an otherwise perfectly good trifle. Since then, we thought all was back to normal until the Stonehouse Trifle Police reported revisionary activity with calls for the re-introduction of non-standard trifles at Christmas. In response, Emily pulled out all the stops, producing a fine tasting and wonderfully decorated Christmas trifle with a follow up trifle by John and Suse which in most years would have claimed top spot. Despite these wonderful offerings, mutterings of alternative New Year trifles continued.

It therefore came as no surprise when a Mordor-like  gat-trifle was begat in the cauldrons of the Dark Lord’s Black Forest kitchens. Even though outnumbered by the Dark Lord and his supporters, Emily has stood her ground and is gathering her forces for another epic battle in the struggle for the preservation of proper trifles. Tell her that she has your support! Anyway, Happy New Year and here’s to better weather!