… you were wondering what has been happening just recently, I didn’t die (although I just smell like I did) I’ve had yet another in a long series of equipment failures.

Yesterday morning it was the turn of the portable ACER laptop that has been my constant companion for 5 years to bite the dust. I mentioned that it seemed to be taking an age to load up. Well the truth of it was that it just never loaded up at all.

But it’s no big deal because it was rubbish when I bought it and it’s gone from bad to worse over the years, creaking and groaning its way along hundreds of voyages into different parts of the world.

The only surprise is that it’s kept going as long as it has.

All that has been lost is about 10 days worth of work and that wouldn’t have been lost had I had the space to back it up so it’s no big deal. And anyway I’m not yet convinced that it’s gone for good … “and it wasn’t either – it was all later reovered, every last bit and byte of it” – ed.

And there is a bright side to it, more of which anon

So having gone off to bed depressingly early last night, I was awake on several occasions right up to the alarm. I had the medication and then some porridge, followed by another sleep.

For a change I awoke in time to pack everything up and hit the road, heading for the Walmart across the State Line in North Dakota.

First though I found a pawn shop so I stuck my head in to see what they might have, but one look at the customers and the staff behind the counter made me change my mind.

At Walmart in Grand Forks they had a laptop that might have done the trick but the staff there was so unhelpful that when they eventually told me what I wanted to know and they they didn’t have one in stock anyway, in the traditions of the best News of the Screws reporter, I made my excuses and left.

Down the flat featureless highway to Fargo, the biggest city in North Dakota. The land here is flat as a pancake for miles around with no feature to break up the relief. Luckily it’s not as monotonous as it sounds with a few trees here and there and different crops, and piles of railway lines exploiting the various produce of the region.

My eye did once rest on a hill, but closer inspection revealed it to be Fargo’s waste disposal facility

At Fargo I put some fuel in and asked the girl at the counter if she could direct me to Walmart. There are a couple here and I’m grateful that she sent me to the one that she did for I struck gold.

After looking for a while at the various items on display my eye fell (don’t ask me why) on q Lenovo Ideapad 330, 1TB hard drive, 4GB RAM and an Intel Core 13 processor, reduced from $349 to $279. Cheap as chips.

I drew the assistant’s attention to it and she said that it was out of stock. And so I asked if she would do a deal on the display model.

It turns out that the box was damaged, all of the accessories except the power cable were missing, and no-one in the shop could work out how to delete the Walmart splash-screen advertising screen-saver.

So after very much debate and discussion, I walked out of Walmart with it under my arm for a mere … wait for it … $125:00. I really can’t believe my luck. It makes losing 10 days work quite palatable.

Leaving Fargo, I went west, like my old computer. Another flat featureless road heading in a straight line, through one of the longest road repair section I have ever seen (we had to wait hours).

Eventually we started to hit the hills. I found Standing Rock, an old native American spiritual site which seems to be a menhir stuck into the ground, and then a scenic byway took me down the valley of the River James, the world’s longest non-navigable river, so they say.

It’s a huge historical site dating back to the early settlers of the 1880, old abandoned farms of the period and everything, and piles of old abandoned cars everywhere.

Eventually, finding an old nuclear rocket and a stern-wheel paddle steamer at the side of the road in Lamoure, I noticed a motel at the side of them. It’s rather early for me but here in the sticks a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush especially as there was a free room.

It’s seen better days, but then again so have I. And I’ve paid much more money to stay in far worse places than this.

In Walmart I found some vegan protein-broth so I heated some up to eat with bread. But although I’m feeling better, my stomach wasn’t quite up to this.

So another early night. I hope that I shall feel better in the morning.