So it seemed like there was nothing for it but to buy another ansaphone.  We went to Argos and couldn't decide between the BT model or the Binatone one we already had been using.  So finally, on the basis that we were familiar with the Binatone we bought that one.  I'm one of those people that read instruction manuals - so that I know about every programme that the new washing machine will do and how to clean out the coin and waste collecting sump even before I turn the thing on.  I've only used the bread making machine once - but I know how to make pizza dough or jam in it.  So I read the instruction booklet for the new ansaphone.  AND - you've guessed it - I discovered why the original machine wasn't working.  You see there are 2 outgoing message choices.  The first allows the caller to leave a message and the second doesn't.  And of course the ansaphone had been set on the second choice outgoing message.  All I had to do was press a button.  A disembodied electronic voice droned "message one" - and now you can leave a message.  Simple. 

And there seem to have been quite a few little happenings recently that are intended to teach me that life is really quite simple.  Like when you search all over the house for your car keys and get annoyed at anyone who might have moved them from the place you always keep them - only to find them in your trouser pocket.  Like how we can create scenarios in our mind (despite all our personal-development-creative-thinking-NLP courses) of how many ways things might turn out wrong - only to discover later that we worried needlessly 'cos it all worked out fine.  But maybe that kind of thing never happens to you.....

As Mark Twain once said "I am a very old man and I've had very many worries - - - but most of them never happened."

Much Love

Stan