... imagine my frustration when, late last night, my computer monitor gave up the ghost ... arghhh!

Mind you, it didn't owe me anything. ... having belonged with the *PC given to me by my daughter & son-in-law back in 2005 when they'd replaced it with a newer model; by which time, it'd already provided upwards of six years' trouble~free service.

Although some 3 years down the line - during the period I had been corresponding with Myrna - I'd to purchase a 'Windows Vista' when the *said computer itself finally packed in, being something of a hoarder, I decided to store the monitor away in a cupboard ... on the off chance it might come in handy some day. And it did too - when the monitor that came with the 'Vista' I'd bought, went "on the blink" around a couple of years ago! Straightaway, the original was pressed back into service. And, lo 'n' behold, as I'd hoped, it still worked ... perfectly! Until last night, that is ...

... so, early this morning - being Christmas Eve - Myrna & myself ventured downtown in search of another. ... specialist shops all wanted more than a hundred quid for each of those in stock! Hmm ... that, for a laugh! And nor did I fancy the exhorbitant prices in the likes of PC World.

Thank goodness for Charity shops; the first of which had the very thing I'd been looking for - a 17" flat screen - at £15 ... well, ... £14.99 to be precise. So, pleased as Punch that - not only had I got exactly what I wanted at a bargain price - the money I'd spent would, MORE IMPORTANTLY, be put towards funding research into Dystrophic Epidermolysis ... a rare, but potentially life-threatening skin condition affecting mainly young children.

Yes, a very worthwhile cause. Proof, indeed, that [nearly] every cloud really does have a silver lining!