I should know better

Back online after various computer failures.......including XP on the laptop announcing that it would be going into hibernation now, and bidding me goodbye for some time.

This was new to me. I pondered on it. Would it be dormant until spring? Would it then awake and, following the example of bears, present me with a new baby laptop? (No, I`m not that silly. I knew that wouldn`t happen. It hadn`t been anywhere near a male laptop.)

I would love to hibernate. I hate winter. I detest heading out into the frozen morning darkness to chip away at frozen coal and encourage the dogs to get moving. The only good thing about winter is Christmas.

I confess it. I love it. The whole thing. I even love sprouts.

Mind you, Christmas for me involves just a bit of freeloading. I spend it visiting my cousins. One doggy lot for Christmas, an Italian family for Boxing day (and a ten course meal, mixed traditional and Italian), another cousin`s hotel for Hogmanay, when the chef tries and fails to be creative with haggis (although I remember affectionately his "Crocodile Dundee" - crocodile tail steaks with marmalade sauce - geddit? ), and back to the long suffering doggy ones on New Year`s day.

I have already had my invitations. My doggy cousin phoned last week. "We hope you can come early - we`re going to a BoxingDay show in Ireland and you`ll have to help do out the Afghans."

"Doing out" an Afghan for show takes about four hours. For the uninitiated, imagine taking up an entire eighties style shag pile carpet from a small bedroom, washing it in the bath and drying it with a hairdryer and hairbrush.

"Before or after the turkey?" I enquired.

There was a pause.

"Oh yes, the turkey," she said. "I`m still working on fitting that in......."