After the torrential rain and flooded roads a few days ago, and prospect of more rain to come, we were left feeling uncertain about travelling home on Tuesday morning. As there were no extreme weather warnings for today, we decided to leave today instead, and packed after breakfast. Then the sun came out, so we walked on the beach and through the dunes for a couple of hours before lunch and then headed for home. There were only a few light showers all day!
Clare was happy to return early as she has extra preparations to make for school this week. I did the shopping, then uploaded to Google Photos 290-odd pictures from our Oxwich stay, and edited them on-line. In the absence of a wi-fi connection, there was no point squandering mobile phone data allowance, especially given the flaky signal we had there. I tried old-school editing on the Linux laptop I took with me, but although the software is good, the poor resolution display on a machine nearly ten years old delivered misleading colour rendering, especially with large high quality photos.
I indulged myself by taking four cameras with me and using them in different situations, just for interest, as taking them by car wasn't a burden. With a poor display screen, comparing them was unsatisfactory, so I transferred the entire folder of these photos to the SD card on my Blackberry, for viewing purposes. As this is a modern sharp high resolution screen on a powerful device, the viewing experience was impressive, despite being small. It revealed mistakes I had made in trying to adjust photos using a screen not really fit for purpose, and that convinced me to leave editing until I could do so at home using a better screen.
The laptop is OK for writing but not for editing photos. I still regret losing to a beer spillage while working a similarly aged Dell XPS a few years ago, which had a high res screen and ran Windows and Linux well. In most ways a Chromebook fits the bill. It's designed for 'always online' use, and can be used off-line, although differences between modes of use are a limitation, especially when it comes to saving a copy of work on a USB device for transfer. It's do-able, but calls for vigilance.
Although 'always online' is the new normal with Windows, files created by use of the device's own apps are saved first to the device, easy to copy for transfer, and then sync'd if/when it's on-line. For Chromebooks, it's the opposite way around. Normally this does not matter, but this difference becomes a noticeable irritant if working offline is inevitable.
Still, it's back to digital normal again now. It was noticeable that after powering up the router and signal booster on arriving home, that we were attached to the internet again within minutes, while the EE signal booster, which runs via the router, and normally runs very well, took several hours to settle down and deliver the usual service. Again, it's one of these things you don't notice, if you neither send nor receive mobile phone calls or texts in the house while the network sorts itself out and re-attaches the device.
It's confusing if you find you cannot make a mobile call, and confusion is compounded nowadays as we can make WhatsApp or Skype calls via wi-fi as well as direct mobile phone calls. It's easy enough to forget or confuse what medium you're using, when not looking at the phone. That's if you've bothered to register the difference between the two services anyway.
I managed to get another couple of hours writing my latest story, which continues to grow in a way which keeps me interested and motivated. I had no idea when I started where this would take me. It's a story about a traveller, and while I have ideas about how it will end, I'm still not sure how long it will take or how to close the circle. What an adventure!
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