When I was in Thailand with Ann in December last, I sought out a cheap, digital bedside clock with a backlight. I turn my phone off in evening and like to know the time when I wake during the night. I thought I'd found the perfect clock at Mr DYI, one entirely fit-for-purpose. Alas, a few weeks later, back in Hazelbrook, it gave up the ghost.

Since then I have tried to find another like it - there are many similar examples about - but the whole process, from January until the present, has been a fiasco. I have bought and returned at least three clocks that didn't work out of the box, another that stopped within a few days and currently have a wretchedly poor performer next to my bed. It is so fragile that if I pick it up, the digital display fades under the strain. If you hit the backlight switch, it collapses entirely and has to be reset.

I don't know why this it is so hard to find something that works and keeps working. I have another on order but we are close to being outside the postal range. Perhaps it will never arrive. I am perhaps fated never to own another.