New Tricks

Those of you who are parents will remember how, as small children, your sons and daughters made new discoveries: eyes wide as saucers as they learnt how Lego could produce whatever shapes they wanted; or the joy of discovering how numbers worked, as they added and subtracted (one that passed me by). As adults though, we seem to lose that joy sometime around late middle age, so it was great to watch our aged hospital-incarcerated relative open their birthday present - the MP3 player and combined DAB radio.

There is a lesson about old dogs and new tricks here: if the trick is of sufficient benefit the old dog will gladly adapt to it, just so long as there is a younger dog to thrust headphones over their ears oblivious to their protests. So, after the first gruff rebuff at being faced with this foreign gadget his expression changed as he heard Black Dyke Mills in crystal digital quality; and the years fell away and, with re-found enthusiasm, he was suddenly eager to learn the secrets of MP3 and DAB; especially when he realised that he would be able to listen to live football commentary on Radio 5 instead of being forced to listen to the extortionate crap hospital service. Though I hesitate to call it a service, blatant profiteering more like.

Finally, you may have noticed a slight reduction in my usual rate of blog posts. This is not unrelated to hospital visiting and I will do my best to maintain a skeleton service during our time of nightly trails to the grim Victorian edifice that is North Manchester General Hospital.

And finally, finally, I borrowed the picture of the dog from Lisa, check out her excellent Flickr site where there are loads more. This dog isn't particularly old but is scared of new things.