This and That

Sometimes there isn’t enough to write about on one single subject. When one writes a blog every day over the last ten years, one needs to be very creative with ideas. I rely a lot on the photos I take. Over the last six months it’s been a bit harder to get photos and come up with anything to write about, but when you put a few together a story unfolds. Because we need to disinfect everything we have been using ethanol mixed with water. We were using leftover shower spray bottles until they quit working. So I found some spray bottles on Amazon that could substitute. Now we have three bottles and are using one. On our morning walk the other day we came across a leaf with two tiny acorns attached that were totally intact. It just caught my eye. Usually one sees the leaves that have dropped, or spent acorns scattered about - usually not both together. On our balcony that faces west we see some beautiful sunsets. Lately there have been several. Speaking of balconies - some sort of interesting bug decided to spend some time on a pillow. It looked like a tiny grasshopper with wings. Yesterday in the park we were stopped dead in our tracks when we came across a very sick raccoon. He fell over on the path on his way to crossing over to the other side. Generally raccoons are nocturnal, and he was alone. We decided to turn around rather than face a potentially rabid creature. I hope the poor thing crossed over the bridge as it was a sad sight. So, for not having much to say....

Acorn or BritBox?

We love anything British - especially the tv shows, movies and series. We love them even more because we watch a lot of tv in the evening. It started with masterpiece theater all those years ago and never ended. I actually bought the Pride and Prejudice CD shortly after we watched it. A couple of years ago we decided to try Acorn TV and got the app to watch it on Apple TV. It had a lot of great shows, but not everything we liked or read about. There are also many shows from Canada and Australia which usually don’t grab our attention; however, anything from Ireland, Wales and Scotland usually do. One of my favorites now is the Yorkshire Vet. If you like animals of all kinds, the countryside, and watching all sorts of crazy issues that arise on farms and homes alike, you’ll love it. After reading - again - about the difference between Acorn and BritBox, we decided to try BritBox because it had a few shows my husband was hearing about. It also has a lot of the golden oldies which we aren’t that crazy about. We obviously love the classics, but also appreciate some of the newer series that have been made - modern dramas and crime shows. It’s interesting because we are recognizing actors across both apps who have become famous in their own right. Now that we are almost caught up with Call the Midwife on Netflix, we have a lot of things in the queue. It’s nice to look forward to engaging television. It’s the only thing that is what it was before the pandemic struck. And a great way to forget about it - at least for a few hours. 

The Clinic - Acorn, Prime, Disney, Tubi, and Other Options

We love British TV. So much so that we have an Acorn subscription that includes a lot of British, Irish, Scottish, Canadian and Australian fare. We were watching The Clinic the last couple of weeks through season 2. There are several more seasons, but I can’t seem to find them anywhere. So I searched where we might be able to find them and Acorn was an option. Well - for two seasons only - which I already knew. Then it said Prime. We have Prime, I found the series on Prime. But it only goes through season 2, although all of the seasons are listed but “video not available.” Since I don’t give up I kept searching for other options. I wrote to Acorn to ask that this series be added to the catalog.  Nothing has changed. Then I found Tubi - a free streaming service. I downloaded that and of course the show wasn’t listed. Then I remembered Verizon was offering a free year of Disney and signed up for that. Obviously that didn’t help either, but maybe there might be something of interest to watch as an alternative. Today I saw that it might be available with a you tube subscription. I suppose I could check it out but I’m getting tired of downloading useless junk. The show had a lot of promise and sometimes you just want to watch something to the end. Maybe not this time. Anyone have any other ideas? 

Apple TV and Acorn App

We decided to get Apple TV last year when we got our new LG TV. I thought the mirroring capability from the iPad might be handy, but we only used it a few times. I really wasn’t interested in any new subscription service since our cable bill is already bad enough. Then we learned about Acorn TV and decided to get a free week trial. For whatever reason I couldn’t find the app on Apple TV. I downloaded it on my iPad and iPhone. We tried to mirror the programs and it just wasn’t crisp or clear enough and streamed poorly. I tried to access the programming from the acorn website and mirror it. That didn’t work either. I knew there had to be a way to make it work and kept finding information about the right kind of Apple TV, etc. I searched on the acorn tv web site and found general Q and A’s. In the meantime we lost the signal to Apple TV so I had to search about how to reboot it. It’s been so long since we used it last that I had to find my notes about accessing it. It was getting quite frustrating so I put it all away for the night and tried again the next morning. I was finally able to find the acorn app on Apple TV and voila! Now I had to figure out how to get closed captioned working because it’s impossible to understand all things English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish! So now we’ve had a free week trial and love every episode of season 8 Doc Martin and all the new Midsomer Murders. There is so much great content available we almost forgot we still have cable. I just tried to update the subscription on the app to annual vs month to month and am not sure it went through. Let’s hope we don’t get charged twice for this programming. I have a feeling there will be a glitch. (Photos are from the acorn app)