My mother told us that she wanted a nice torch for Christmas. Now that’s a good present to get a mother, we thought. But finding a good torch, like the one she wanted was not as easy as we thought, but finally we located one, as below, with a rechargeable battery. It came in a nice box, just the right size to wrap up easily, so Junko used a sheet of paper, a bow, a tag and some nice Christmas tape to do a splendid job of the wrapping. Excellent, and all ready to deliver on Christmas day.

Or so we thought. In the midst of the drama that was yesterday’s boiler problem, our torch had a bit of an accident. I dropped it and it works no more. Well, it fell off the little ledge I had wedged it onto so that I could see in where the tank is. Broken bulb and glass (plastic). No good any more at all. And I wasn’t going out in the snow to get a replacement. Solution? Use mother’s Christmas present! It’s a very good torch, which at least is good to know. But we can hardly give it to her as a present now, can we? And what a pity about the lovely wrapping that Junko had done.

Here is the torch, unwrapped.



It was a very cold night, but there was no more snow so the view from the front window looks pretty much the same as yesterday as there has been no significant thaw.

Dare I mention it, but the boiler and the central heating system are still working. I need to touch wood, often.

Quiz 363
“America sneezes and Britain ………”
a) says ‘Bless you’
b) catches a cold
c) runs off and looks for a paper handkerchief
d) gets blown away

Yesterday’s was c)