Computer based catch up

I have been a bit slack in the last couple of days, both with doing projects and with writing them up.

Tuesday morning began with Milla having a manicure.

The weather was not great with overnight storms, but at least the rain and the worst of the winds held off until the afternoon by which time she had two beautiful front feet. Her back will have to wait until the weather improves, and her temper too!

Still - I bought her a lovely new head collar and lead rein today to make up for it.

I realised on Tuesday that leaving my lead rein outside over winter would not necessarily have ruined it, but leaving it where Milla could chew on it definitely had.

Then I got stuck in during the afternoon setting up my new second-hand computer. Being a bit of neatness freak, I had to get all the cables tidied away and some desk re-arranging had to happen to make the setup comfortable to use.

The computer was very kindly given to us by friends who felt sorry for Brendan having to constantly fight for access to a laptop so he could chat to his forum buddies.

The 'new' computer is a tower so it has gone up into the office and has been hardwired for internet access. It has become mine by default as I seem to have the programmes with the biggest memory requirements and as my current lot of photos already take up 25GB I can only see me needing more and more memory.

I do have an external hard drive as a back up drive and last night and this morning was spent moving the photo folders from the laptop memory onto the external drive and then convincing the new tower to recognise and upload my files. This sounds easier to do than it actually was.

You see the tower has a Dutch operating system, as it came from Dutch friends, and then when I downloaded my software, most of it was in French, as that is country the computer is in, but I like to read and write in English. So there has been a bit of a three way language lesson going on, as I try to read enough Dutch to find the setting controls for the programmes to change them into English, and then do the same for the French programmes. But here I am in English. And the best thing about it is - the operating system may be Dutch but it is XP and not Vista!


Anyway - this afternoon was a bit of bargaining time between Brendan and myself.

For some time Brendan has had a dead tractor, he has finally found he has oil pressure and so the engine is worth repairing. To repair it he needs a new piston. To buy a new piston would cost 400 euros - so not happening. To buy a second hand piston would cost around 100 euros - more likely. So we have struck up an arrangement - in return for the piston, he will not enter a supermarket for the whole month of April. This may seem daft, but if you know Brendan you will know he has a supermarket shopping fixation and a loaf of bread and pint of milk inevitably cost me 30 euros in other items I did not want to buy.

I believe he can save the 100 euros just by staying out of a supermarket for a month. In return I took him to a Carrefour today so he could stock up on some nibbles and beer that I would not normally buy. Not that I think for a second that they will last a month - but I can hope.

I want to him to renovate the pantry later this year, so this is as good a reason as any to eat all the stuff that is hiding away on the back of the shelves and hasn't seen the light of day for months.

I can also treat the pantry renovation as an excuse to drink all the plum wine, elderberry and blackberry vodka, orange and apricot liqueur that is stashed away at the back - well it does save on moving it out to the barn, only to have to move it all back in again.



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