International day

We slept late and then enjoyed our usual Saturday pancake breakfast. I pottered around with my new PC for much of the morning, trying to figure out why it seemed not to accept my Microsoft account identity. Then I stumbled across the correct sequence, calling for the account PIN number after entering a blank enter key press. There's no indication this is what is required to complete the process. I seem to recall that I stumbled across this before when setting up the new laptop, and had forgotten.

After one last check of the little HP mini, I initiated the reset process, a clean wipe and re-installation of Windows 10 from the Cloud. I thought this would be OK to do as we have a faster broadband connection, and thee weren't any glitches downloading and getting started. Even so, the reset process took five hours to complete. How different from a Chromebook Power Wash, which resets the device in two minutes.

Owain arrived at two for a late lunch, and then we watched the Wales v Scotland rugby match on telly. It was an exciting game which Wales just won, thanks to a drop goal. It finished just after the day's Winter Olympic broadcast began - spectacular aerobatic half-pipe snowboarding and down hill racing. We then went out for a walk in the park for an hour before dark, on a drab afternoon, perhaps accentuated by seeing all that snow and blue sky on telly. Then Owain left us to visit friends before returning to Bristol.  

I finished tomorrow's sermon, and delayed printing it out until I we'd watched this evening's new French crimmie on BBC Four, called 'The Promise' set around Bayonne near Biarritz in the beautiful French Basque Country. When it came to printing it out, I had to find and re-install the printer drivers. The operating system had correctly identified the printer and automatically downloaded the right management software to go with it, but didn't automatically look for the drivers to make it work. 

Fortunately the HP desktop app was easy to use and linked to the official download page, from whence it was possible to install the relevant drivers. Installation took ages to complete, so that I wondered if the machine had stalled. It was nearly midnight by the time I could print. At least it's still working well at least ten years since bought it. I should have anticipated this earlier in the day. I could do without this kind of annoyance before bed.