Life Goes On

Things are pretty grim at home. My Mother-in-law has not responded much to the treatment she has had so far. Repeated trips up to the hospital are wearing my wife out. At home there is always an anxiety. Always the phone going. Always the doorbell ringing.

Friends and relations mean well, but they don't appreciate the collective drain they impose upon the immediate family.

We need to get out and away for a bit, time to refresh our batteries.

My wife and I will be attending what is billed as the biggest Bookcrossing event ever held in the U.K. It's part of a literature festival on London's South Bank (Or Southbank, as I believe we are expected to call it). It's this Saturday, details here.

Even if we don't find any books (I fancy the Blake) It will be good to be in the fresh air. We'll probably go for a walk, and see if we can spot any metal men.

How Quickly Life Changes

On Wednesday afternoon, during my lunch break, I booked our summer holiday. We could both do with one. It has been a tough spring. My wife and I were planning a lovely meal for the evening, and everything was good.

Then my wife got a phone call. Her mum (who lives with us) had collapsed in the street, and was in the local hospital Accident and Emergency unit. We were not too worried. They said she was OK. We figured it would be three for dinner while we pampered her a little.

When my wife got to the hospital it turned out that my mother-in-law had had a "massive" stroke, was paralysed down her right side, and had lost the power to speak.

We have since learned that she has developed a chest infection. The next few days will be critical. She is in her eighties, and things could easily get worse quickly.

But in the middle of this there are still moments that bring a smile to our lips.

Tigger, one of our visiting cats, has good reason to like the old human with the white hair. She opens the patio doors for him most mornings and gives him his breakfast long before my wife and I are up and about.

Yesterday, I let him in. He wandered around the kitchen, sniffing. Then he strolled off very casually and went upstairs.

After ten minutes or so I went up to check where he was, but couldn't see him anywhere.

Then I looked in my mother-in-law's bedroom.

No sign of Tigger anywhere...

Then I saw the duvet on the bed moving ever so slightly, rising up and down with the breathing of a very contented Tigger, under the covers, fast asleep in my wife's mothers bed....

Safety First

After my problems with the main PC at the beginning of the week, I have decided to take some preventative action. I have just bought a 120 Gigabyte portable hard drive. It comes with software to automate a back-up procedure whenever the user specifies. At least this way, should the main hard drive fail, I will always have a back-up ready to copy over. The thought of all my music and pictures just disappearing due to component failure is horrendous.

If we are to live in cyberspace, we always need to keep a spare!

Technical Problems Update

And the hot news is that the techies could find nothing wrong, I took the PC home and now everything is hunky dory!!

One can only assume there was a loose component somewhere in the PC. They took it apart, dusted it, and put it back. I am writing this on the very machine.

All-in-all the £15.00 minimum fee seems very reasonable as long as the problem doesn't return.

Of course, the moral of this tale is

***Always Back Up Your Data!!! ***

I had all my music safe on my Ipod, and all of my photos are on CD or still on the digital camera. After dinner though, I am going to go through the files on this PC and see what else I need to copy. Before it is too late!

Isn’t Technology Wonderful?

Just heard from the computer technicians who have had my ailing PC since yesterday morning. They have checked it over, but can find nothing wrong at all. The finger of suspicion now points to my LCD flat screen monitor. (Which I did not take to the tecchies). If I was Welsh Dog, I would just reach into my pile of old monitors and plug one in. Me, I don’t have any spares.

So, I will have to collect the main PC unit and then plug it all back together again, plug in the screen, and switch on. If it still doesn’t come on, it’s probably the monitor.

I’ll be hoping it is. The alternative, an intermittent fault, is too wearisome to contemplate.

Excuses, Excuses.

I was going to title this blog "The Rumours of my Death have been Greatly Exaggerated".
I googled the phrase just to check that it was Mark Twain that said it. Google produced 2,020,000 hits. They confirmed two things.

1. It was Mark Twain.
2. Practically every blogger under the sun has used it as a blog title, usually when returning to the blogosphere after an extended absence.

I've not posted in about three weeks, for which I offer my apologies. My period of silence was mostly caused by going back to work. I've only been doing half days, but it has taken it out of me. (Other things that were taken out of me can be discussed with the consultant who did my hernia repair at the beginning of May).

Work hasn't got any easier either. A couple of work colleagues are moving on to new posts and that means I'm having to take on new responsibilities. It's been busy to say the least.

It hasn't all been hard slog though. I've released a few books in the last few days as part of my drive to promote Bookcrossing. While I was off-air I found my first wild release, and had one of my wild releases journalled. Do check the site out, it's a great idea with over half a million members.

I have plans to add a few widgets onto the blog, such as a link to my Bookcrossing home page and my Librarything catalogue. However, I think my antipodean friend Welsh Dog has spread his technical curse over on this side of the planet. My main PC has gone on the fritz (technical term) and the screen is dead. Well, that's tomorrow morning gone already whilst I try and work out if it's the monitor, the graphics card or, (God forbid), the hard drive that has failed. We had a power cut a few days ago - lets hope it wasn't a power surge or the whole kit and caboodle could be fried!!

More soon.