Trials and tribulations

On Monday night, after picking me up at Berwick Station, Mountain Man was complaining of a sore ear. This then evolved into him vomiting throughout the night. It turned out he had a virus, which is a repeat of the one he had in December and another bout in January. I also succumbed, but luckily not the vomiting bit, just feeling dizzy and not well. Unfortunately the other 'person' to feel the effects of illness that abounded in our house was my laptop. It went into shutdown mode and refused to get up again. Nell the dog, meanwhile, slept through everything.

I have a backup system on my mac, called Time Machine, and very useful it is too as it automatically backs up when attached. This is great, except when the computer won't start. And so it was that, on Tuesday, I had a telephone appointment with the Computer Surgeon Supreme, Andy, who was at that moment heading for the door to take a plane to do his good work somewhere down south. We decided that my computer needed to come in to his surgery in Edinburgh after his return, and so I found myself without a computer for the majority of this week, and it was unbelievably painful.

I have an iPad and although I love it to bits and for watching films, listening to music, searching the web etc it is fab, but it isn't the workhorse that my computer is and I can't do 'serious' work on it.

Today, I set off for the Edinburgh Sick Computer Hospital to take my beloved laptop to Computer Surgeon Supreme Andy. I couldn't stay in the room while it was being operated on as it made me feel sick just to think it might never get up again. So while Shirley and I had a coffee and a catch up, CSS Andy did what he had to do and I am pleased to report a miraculous recovery. The patient is now home and, after a half hour of chuntering away rebuilding whatever it needed to rebuild once we got back into my office, it is now up and running perfectly.

I can't tell you how relieved I am. CSS Andy is a wonderfully generous man to give up his time to help me, and this, good people, is on the day of his 39th wedding anniversary... that's dedication to duty if ever I heard it.

So, congratulations to Shirley and Andy, and a huge thank you Andy for your surgical attentions.

And Mountain Man? He's all better now, as am I. Nell meanwhile is, after a short hiatus, back asleep.