I'll be working on Mother's Day but was thinking in my absence, I'd set up a sort of treasure hunt with each clue leading her to a different little present/experience. For example, flowers in one hiding spot, with a note that leads to next spot with massage voucher. Hopefully it works and she doesn't bust me planting the clues!

I love to change soft furnishings and some decorative items in our family room and master bedroom for summer/winter. In summer I have a lot of white/sand/soft blues with a beachy theme: blue glass, seashells - light and bright. Winter brings out the reds/orange/fuchsias etc. Some of the wall artwork is also changed. I just change the cushion covers, and things like bed linen/bedspread etc. Also the wall decoration behind the bed to tone with the new theme. I don't go out and buy new stuff as I find this method very refreshing ... and it seems 'new' each season! I should add that I have neutral backgrounds and furnishings so that I can do this easily. Even greenery and different floral arrangements enhance the respective themes.

The timing of this article is perfect! Given the erratic weather lately, shielding outdoor furniture has become a real challenge. While I've experimented with some methods here, I'm still searching for a solution with lasting effects. Do you have any specific product or brand recommendations? A big thank you to @Kevin Carol (https://qr.ae/pyDKpb) for suggesting The Cover Company NZ for outdoor furniture protection. I'm definitely going to explore their offerings. It would be fantastic if you could compare a few similar brands in terms of quality, pricing, and customization. Your insights would be highly valuable.

Daryl, I for one, have been following this thread with great interest since your comment and am very sorry to hear the problems you have had. I had never heard of any of this, but with the dramatically increasing incidences of asthma, mental illness and depression, attention deficit and behavioural problems with children especially, autism - the list goes on - I often stop to wonder why, I know when I was young half of these issues didn't seemed to exist, yet did they and and no one knew about them, or is this because there are more people in the world now or is it all a part of modern living and why? Pollution has been blamed for many things but it seems as fast as we clean up one form of pollution we start another such as this. Technology is advancing at a crazy pace and the younger generation are eager for more and more but is anyone really stopping to investigate health issues or are we just becoming obsessed not just with the profits to be had from it, but also to free ourselves from everyday drudgery and live a Jetsons life style. We all want more free time, but what are we doing with it? In many cases working longer hours to pay for it !! It seems we are too obsessed with "improving" our lives to stop and question any consequences. For we seniors, this is not doing us any favours, we were not raised with this, it is a whole new way of life for us and the faster technology advances, the faster we are being left behind floundering in the mess. No one stops to think that women especially in my age group were forced to resign from work when we married or had children, there was no place for us in the workforce, our place was at home, cleaning and maintaining it, ensuring our menfolk were well fed and dressed and our children were properly raised. For many women, they lost workplace skills, but the male ego was also dinted if wives went back to work, men were expected to be the providers. Unless you have lived through this period you really would have no comprehension of just how much attitudes and opportunities have changed particularly in the second half of last century, I think we have lived through some of the greatest changes ever but sadly not everyone is given the opportunity to embrace them. There are many, many people in society today, in their 60s, 70s and 80s who just don't have a clue about technology, they never had the opportunity to use it or learn about it in their younger years, but now it is just an assumption that "everyone" knows, so many seniors are really falling through the cracks, they are missing out on many benefits and are totally vulnerable to scammers. The point I make here now is that trying to follow this discussion, I realise even more what a whole new language technology seems to have introduced and how much further seniors are being left behind. I had to look up what a "dect" phone was - never heard that word used before, so many other words and terms have me floundering too, half of Ian's learned comments might as well have been written in Swahili, just where do you go to learn all this? As a senior though, (and I have many friends agree) I have a lifetime of learning stored in my grey matter, it is full and it is tired, how much more does it have to learn, how much do I really want to learn - quite frankly as little as possible, I'm over it all now. I very much agree with Pottsy's comment of putting a tin foil cap on my head, if that makes everything go away I'm more than happy. However these health issues now are definitely a great cause for concern, not just for me but I think of my grandchildren, how reliant they are on technology now, they were raised and are being raised with nothing else, what is in the future for them? I had to have my modem changed to a Smart modem recently because the original one kept failing and unfortunately I have to rely in the internet now to stay in touch with family. I also rely on regular Nanna Naps to get through the day, is this just an age thing or is it the wifi?? How will we ever know these things - obviously Daryl, your symptoms were severe enough to identify this but for someone only mildly affected ??? It is like back in the early days of mobile phones and people developing brain cancer, there were thoughts this could happen, but it wasn't like suddenly millions of people developed brain cancer and it could never be proven that people who did would not have developed it anyway. We still don't know why people get many forms of cancer, but I can understand the skepticism and cynicism - how much slower would technology advance if we really took time out to more thoroughly investigage health risks. It is great that you have identified this issue for us Daryl, but realistically where do we go from here? It is a bit like closing the gate after the horse has bolted and trying to fight telco's .............yeah!! .