Techy day

A clinic visit Friday morning, then bag packing and loading up the car for our late afternoon drive to Kenilworth for the weekend. In the afternoon, I went about resetting my Windows 10 laptop for use by Rhiannon, as she's not been getting on well with the little HP laptop I gave her a few years ago. This innocuous task proved to be something of a nightmare, taking five hours for a scrupulous date file wipe and re-installation of the operating system. I could have set up four Linux devices from scratch in that amount of time. I hadn't suspected, and was reluctant to abort the process in case this would leave me with an unusable Windows machine. So we left two hours late, much to Clare's exasperation, unfortunately.

The roads were quiet all the way there, but I drove less than half the distance, as I couldn't settle comfortably (and therefore safely) in the driving seat for a sustainable length of time. It happens like this occasionally, and it's difficult to work out the reason for it. Thankfully, Clare is still confident driving on familiar routes. We arrived just as 'The Archers' ended on the radio, and soon sat down to a delicious risotto supper and a couple of superb bottles of 'Easter' wine - a Rioja and a Primitivo. There was lots of catch up on, with Kath, Anto and Rhiannon back from Sta Pola the previous day, with photos to show, and grumbles about the horrid wet and windy weather they had there, in contrast to the hot and sunny weather here in the UK, a reversal of usual conditions this time of year.

I had a message from Sheila's son John to tell me she had died early this morning in Holme Tower. The funeral is proposed for 9th May. I wrote and told Laura, feeling sad for her that her dear friend didn't live to see her one last time, and that she will have to return to Romania before Sheila can be last to rest. They'd known each other for fourteen years, since Laura met her during a specialist placement in geriatric medicine at Llandough Hospital. They became firm friends, despite the age difference between them, and had been part of the reason for her annual return trips to Cardiff.

I spent a good deal of Saturday setting up Rhiannon's account on her new computer, and trying to figure out what the problem was with her previous one. I found that her OneDrive account was full, mostly with videos she'd taken, so there was no room for scores of folders containing photos she'd taken in recent years, over sixty gigabytes in fact. These were only on the laptop drive. I decanted all these, plus documents on to a portable storage drive and transferred them to the new device. 

Then there was another little Acer laptop to update and reclaim, which I loaned Kath last year when her own laptop keyboard started malfunctioning. She doesn't need it any longer, as she's converted all her work flow entirely to Mac, with a desktop Mac Mini and a Macbook Air. Good luck to her. I was tempted to buy a classic second hand Macbook a couple of weeks ago, but relented. For me it's not worth the expense, with so little written work coming my way these days, and little else that needs more than a Chromebook to get done. I maintain Windows and Linux devices to keep my skill set alive, for when I get asked for techy type help.

In the evening, I watched 'Follow the Money' using the tidies and updated little HP laptop, as others wanted to watch something different on telly.

A repair and replacement week

After celebrating the midweek Eucharist with ten people at St German's Wednesday morning, I took the car into Canton Quikfit depot to get something done about the exhaust, which sounds like a hole is developing. Later, I had a phone call to say it needed the catalyst replacing, and had to be ordered.  It was going to be expensive. Time to think. At 24 years old the car's scrap value is a hundred pounds, but it's mechanically in good nick and the bodywork surprisingly sound for a car of its age.

Clare's nephew and godson David had expressed an interest in the car's potential and having it when we've finished with it, during our East Anglian birthday party visit, as it would be a worthy candidate for restoration, or customizing for racing if one was so inclined, not that we'd want to take this course but we're minded to hand it on to him when we change cars. It has to be driveable when we do, as he lives in Scotland, so I decided there was no option but to go ahead, spend the money and keep the car for a while longer. 

Thursday afternoon there was another call to say that the catalyst's sensor was also irretrievable due to corrosion. More expense, and delay while the part is ordered. Today, a third call to say that a further pipe section has to be ordered. More cost, more delay until Monday, which means a car-less weekend. The only useable component of the exhaust remaining is the muffler section which Quikfit replaced several years ago. We don't use the car that much. It's only when it's not there at our beck and call that we notice.

Meanwhile, back at the office, the Acer desktop failed yet again to self-repair. It remains stuck in a loop after re-boot, with no error message to indicate the real problem. So, this afternoon I unplugged it, put it back in its packaging and returned to John Lewis'. Rather than a like for like replacement I've decided it's better to go for the HP equivalent, even if we have to wait a few days for one to arrive at the store. In the five weeks since it was purchased, I don't think we've had more than five days use out it. Most disappointing, and such a waste of time, all that machine minding while it pretended to repair itself.

Bargain hunt continues

Eddie and Ann set off for Felixstowe in Monday rain after a long slow breakfast together, and we made a hesitant start to our week. Mid afternoon we travelled into town together - me to bank a cheque and Clare to meet Owain over an exchange of birthday present. 

Duty done, I made my way to John Lewis' store only to see Clare descending the escalator as I was ascending on a bargain hunt. Having landed two great bargains here recently, I can't resist looking for a third when there's nothing better to do. I found just what I was after, a big HP desktop PC running Windows 7 for the office at forty percent discount, to replace Ashley's big laptop, designed with gamers in mind in late 2008, running Windows Vista. It was, in its day, the most expensive piece of equipment we had, and the only one to have failed requiring a visit from a Dell service engineer to sort out the RAID array and re-install the OS, with corresponding data loss. 

Unfortunately, I was in Spain at the time, helpless to intervene with caution in this emergency - probably out cycling somewhere out of 'phone signal range. Getting all the necessary software back up to required standard was one of the first jobs I did when I returned. There was minimal real data loss. A little email data was lost because British Telecom re-jigged their email servers in the same month of misfortune, so missing stuff couldn't be downloaded again. Nothing critical to Company business was lost, due to an obsessive dispersed back-up policy for which there is no need to apologise.. Tomorrow is dedicated to setting up the new machine ready for Ashley to use when he gets back into action after a retail crime conference in London the day after.

Having delivered the new PC to the CBS office, I headed for home. Passing St John's church, I noticed that the contractors shutters around the tower arches had been removed, revealing the new glass door and wall panels which have just been installed. It gave me great pleasure to see this as it was a project close to my heart. I took a few unsatisfactory photos using my Blackberry phone camera. Here's the best of a mediocre bunch.

After supper, I drove out to Cowbridge Holy Cross to join a two hundred strong congregation for the licensing and welcome of Fr Edward Dowland-Owen, the Benefice's new Team Vicar. It was an enjoyable experience, sitting in the congregation with lay people I normally lead in worship, feeling part of this 'community of communities' that calls itself 'church' in this area. Apart from attending summer Evensong at Llanfrynach, this is the first big Benefice event I've taken part it. It gave me a sense of belonging that, if I'm honest, I've missed since retirement. It makes me feel blessed.