Two major improvements.
1. Christopher has opted to leave Sky and go to Freesat. So we now have his old Sky+HD box to replace our standard Definition Sky+ which means that both of our satellite receivers can receive and record the free HD channels.
We did however come across a problem, the sound would go funny every now and then - sort of a echo and distortion, only cured by putting the Sky Box on Standby and back on again. I did some research and found that in fact it was not the Sky box but our television. Now that we were watching via the HDMI lead this was a known problem with our Toshiba 40" TV set. There was a software upgrade on the Toshiba website and this now appears to have solved the issue.
2. I read on a news site on the internet that Virgin Media were doing a "No Extra Monthly Cost" upgrade from 20Mb to 30Mb internet service. There was a one off fee of £30 and they provide a new Super Hub - this is a combined router and modem. Gail and I were both interested but I then realised we only had a 10Mb service and so enquired a bit more.
It turned out that due to various price increases and deals for new users etc over the years, that we could upgrade for the same one off payment of £30 and then our monthly cost would be £5 cheaper! Needless to say we are now on a 30Mb service.