A Tad Breezy

There's an irritrating whistle coming from one of our doors. They are all double glazed and quite new so shouldn't be leaking air. But given the strength of the winds lately I suppose it'll seek out a path of least resistance. I haven't really known wind like this since first moving here in October 2002. Last night was lively to say the least with odd knocks and other less distinguishable noises.
No photo today as my wife had the car, but I could have taken many of fallen trees and other such debris. In fact the road from here to the next village was blocked by a fallen tree early this morning, such has been the ferocity of the wind.

A techie note and I have managed finally to get my Wii fully networked. It now sees every device and share on my home network allowing it to stream video and audio and show photographs from my somewhat growing collection. It's fair to say that I'm really getting the very most from it, which is good.

There's a lot in the news currently regarding racism, particularly following the conviction of two nasty individuals involved in the murder of Stephen Lawrence eighteen years ago. I now see that there is a media furore over comments made by Diane Abbott. Whilst any form of racism is wrong, I can't help feeling that things are beginning to get a little ridiculous, resulting in perfectly innocent comments being taken out of context. I really think it's about time some common sense prevail.

A New Year & New Toys

It's a Bank Holiday here and we're making the most of the last day of the holiday season here in the UK. Christmas decorations are still up but we're taking them down tomorrow. Everything will seem so bland once they're down and it will really hit home that we've begun a new year. Celebrations here were pretty muted. For the first time in ages, my wife and I saw in the new year together. Normally she sleeps through it. My son wanted to see the fireworks and celebrations in London so I put it on a DVD for him. He's been watching it on his portable DVD player - one of his Birthday gifts.

There's much speculation in the media about what the new year will hold. We're told that the outlook is grim and that the effects of the recession will be more harsh than in 2011. For us, our biggest worry is what will happen to our home once our insurance stops paying out for the mortgage in February. No matter how hard I try to push it to the back of my mind, the stark reality is always there. I'm once again reliant on my wife to see us through whatever befalls us. We will have to meet with the bank in a couple of weeks to make them aware of our predicament and hope that they will take pity on us. I try not to worry, but it's difficult.

My support group have their first meeting of the year tomorrow and I'll be attending as normal. January is well known for bringing on bouts of depression as people come down from the high of the festive season to the reality of work, mounting debts and worry. I'm wondering how the members of our little group have coped. I'm lucky - I have a wonderful wife who makes everything right and without whom I would have nothing, be nothing. She puts up with a lot and I don't appreciate her enough. I know this. Depression is a very selfish illness. It affects at different levels, at different times and in different ways. It is a complicated illness. No two sufferers are the same. I am lucky to have her.

A bit of techie stuff and a welcome addition to our family is the Wii. It has in the last few days changed from being just a gaming console to a fully networked box of tricks which can now play DVD's, music, surf the Internet and interact with other computers. I was always aware that it was capable of far more than just game play so set about finding out how to apply 'Wii-hacks' to get it to do things it doesn't normally do. And I'm mighty pleased with the results. The games for the Wii are hugely expensive so the ability to download new free games is brilliant. Another function I find immensely useful is the ability to view YouTube content without the need to navigate the site. You simply enter what you're looking for and the Wii displays the videos available. You point to the one you want to watch and the video plays full screen, and in very good quality. It's all out there on the Internet.
I do need to find some software to assist my son with his typing and word skills. We bought him a keyboard for Christmas for hom to use on the Wii. It has chunky coloured keys and is built especially with children in mind. 

My wife's employer is popping round this afternoon. It's a New Year tradition. She'll want to see all the new toys my son received for Christmas and for his Birthday on the 27th. So of course the house is spotless in readiness. Unlike most employers, she is more of a friend to us and treats us all very well. She is always very generous and always buys gifts for our son. We're very fortunate really...