Views from the past.

Another dull cloudy day. I took a turn cooking the Saturday pancakes for breakfast, then spent the rest of the morning tidying up my study, trying to make myself a better workspace. Then I started the Windows 7 laptop I bought from Anto and then attached my photo scanner to it and installed the software to run it. No success. Although the device works perfectly with my fifteen year old Windows Vista Acer workstation, it won't work with Windows 7. This Acer laptop was configured to play music in what nowadays would be called 'kiosk' mode and used offline only. It's never been attached to the internet, and I'm unsure it has network software activated. Not impossible to update, but basically not worth the effort. 

I have another Acer laptop also about 12 years old. I had a spare hard drive and some time ago installed Windows 7 on it from a CD with the activation key provided, but its authenticity relies on using it on-line. I'm not sure if it can do this any longer since Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7 a decade ago. Redundancy designed into it. Fortunately, I have a SSD with Linux installed on it so I'll have to swap it over, now that I know my efforts have come to nothing. At least the Windows Vista version soldiers on.

What I was working away, Clare cooked me a comfortingly delicious pork chop for lunch. I set up the scanner with my old workstation Acer to confirm it can be configured and works properly, then we walked to Bute Park to have a drink in the 'Secret Garden' cafe. It was very busy, maybe more popular than ever since the business succeeded in renewing its lease on the property, thanks to support from its clientele.

In the evening after supper, I scanned about thirty photos: negatives from a Bristol Steiner school camping trip to Three Cliffs Bay, in July 1988, when Owain had just turned ten, and some from a family package holiday to Teneriffe in the previous summer. In that packet of negatives were also photos of our Australian friends Jan, Katie and Karina, visiting us in Chepstow after I started working for USPG. It's lovely to be reminded of good times when the kids were young. And there's lots more packs of negatives remaining to be rediscovered in times to come.