Getting zymotic on the second day of Christmas

My sore throat persists (please Gawd, not another strep throat), so I lingered in bed and re-watched the final ten minutes of the new Doctor Who Christmas special because I had dozed off last night. Space Canada evidently doesn't view Doctor Who as a family show; they screened it at 9 pm which is a little too close to my bedtime, particularly after a day of guzzling spiked egg nog and battling off whatever it is I've got.

So this Boxing Day has been too quiet to say much of interest, but if you've been following this lame excuse of an alphabetical series of posts, two or three looming problems may have (just may have, let's not tempt fate, shall we?) been resolved.

We are reading through Watership Down with younger daughter, roughly three chapters a day. Even though we took Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off (we're not monsters), we have got through sixteen of the fifty chapters. Very encouraging.

This morning, I took younger daughter up the snowy hill with the Accent Snob to return overdue books through the slot of the closed library and to give younger daughter a chance to walk the dog with little traffic to worry us. This proved to be a good thing because younger daughter is still learning the ins and outs of a retractable leash, so the stroll was punctuated by shouts of "It's not my fault!!!" However, she clearly enjoyed the Boxing Day strollers' greeting the dog and persevered for the fifteen minutes up and ten minutes down the hill.

The afternoon of the Collar-less Coronary Incident, the Resident Fan Boy marched the Accent Snob down to the local pet supply store to fit him with a harness. It has become clear to us during the past seventy-two hours that this dog has been wearing harnesses most of his life. Not only is he calmer and less liable to pull, he actually co-operates in getting the harness put on.

Finally, elder daughter used my account at Digital Theatre to download Tennant and Tate's take of Much Ado About Nothing on to her laptop. I watched it today, smooth and non-jerky, even during the dance numbers. Now I want my own laptop, but I won't hold my breath.

So, life throws challenges at us and we actually cope sometimes. And I managed to flame the plum pudding this year. I seem to succeed in this every two years. Still, mustn't get cocky...