Awake and posting this week' Morning Prayer link at the usual time before breakfast. Then a walk to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with four others, then back for an early lunch to enable us to drive across town for hairdressing appointments with Chris.
As we were about to leave I had a phone call from my sister June in distress because her computer was emitting a loud warning noise and Microsoft 'messages' were flashing full screen, saying that her internet access had been blocked due to malicious software, and were uncontrollable, and she should call a Microsoft helpline on a US number.
What to do? It sounded suspicious to me, as I don't believe any outside agent can do such blocking. The best thing to do, I thought was switch off the router first and put the laptop into suspend mode by closing the lid.
As there was nobody around to help her I decided to travel up to London once I'd taken Clare home. The earliest train was. 18.45, but fortunately there was a coach at 18.00. i walked to Sophia gardens in good time to buy a ticket, and although the trip was slower, I arrived at Wexford Lodge at ten. The erratic front door catch release didn't work so June had to come downstairs and let me in. After a drink and a snack, I got to work.
The noisy flashing screen persisted. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del took me out of the desktop window into the menu which features Task Manager so I could see what processes were running. Once the two main active ones were stopped, a return to the desktop without the scary nags was possible. As ever there was a string of updates to let run and a virus scan to run. No infections found. Peace of mind panic over. But what had happened? Very late by then. Time for bed.
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