… has arrived. And I can see that I’m going to have to be very careful with it. Not only is it lightning-fast, but it’s also very sensitive. You only have to let an action key have a whiff of the cursor anywhere in the vicinity and it goes into action, whether you want it to or not.
In fact, I wish that the cursor would come within whiffing distance of me so that I would go “into action, whether you want it to or not”, because I’m feeling rather lethargic at the moment — not that anything usually does come within whiffing distance of me. Well, not more than once anyway.
Last night was another late night, due in the main to the steam-driven computer taking just about forever to perform a few simple tasks. However, it was 23:50 when I finally crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head.
And there I lay until all of 06:29 when the alarm went off, and this was another one of those mornings where I had a great amount of difficulty leaving the bed.
Still, with no dialysis today, I didn’t have to pretty myself up … "a hopeless task anyway" – ed … so I could move on quickly for my hot honey, ginger, and lemon drink and my medication.
Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.
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Despite what people might think, it is nice to see Nerina. After all, you can’t live with someone for nine years and not like them at all – at least, I can’t. We could have made beautiful music together but it was the wrong place at the wrong time, unfortunately. And I did once nearly live in an apartment on Cronkinson Oak, which would have been lovely, but they sent me to Elm Terrace in Crewe which was not so nice.
Many a time I’ve walked in the opposite direction, from Queensferry to Chester when I was dropped off there hitchhiking back from the Wirral when I lived in Chester. I always drove out to the Auctions at Queensferry though. At one time, I did have a grey MkIII estate, a “J” registered 2,000 cc one, one of the first, and with the sloping dash. But I’m “dashed” if I can remember what happened to it.
This sounds just like me, falling off a ladder when there’s no-one around. Been there, done that. I’d have no interest in a Renault Trafic van either. Renaults are not my favourite vehicle, and by a long way too. The question that I was asking (I can still remember it now) was that if the impedance of the PA speakers is eight ohms, would an on-stage monitor passed across both left and right channels be four ohms or sixteen ohms?
The rest of it is the usual meaningless jumble of nothing.
Isabelle blew in like a gale this morning, which was a surprise seeing as the wind had now disappeared completely. And she blew out just as quickly too. She’d been held up on her round and there was someone waiting at her office for a blood test, so she didn’t have time to chat.
Once she’d left, I could make breakfast. Just a small breakfast today, and I managed to eat everything.
After that, I came back in here and had a few things to do. And then I finished off writing to notes for the radio programme on which I’d been working.
At 12:03 precisely, the postie turned up with the new computer. It took me a while to unpack it and then set it up – I had to restart it a couple of times. But to my dismay, the taskbar is locked at the bottom of the screen. I can’t unlock it, rotate it around vertically and pin it at the right-hand side. And judging by the hundreds of posts in the appropriate forum, I’m not the only one by any means who misses this facility.
But nevertheless, we carry on, and I’ve been uploading programs all afternoon. Waterfox doesn’t seem to want to run on it, but a couple of the other stripped-down browsers seem to manage just fine.
At 16:30, I knocked off to make some pastry. I’ve run out of vegan pie and there was some more pie filling in the freezer so I made pastry and filled it. It’s all in the fridge now, waiting for the baking session tomorrow when it will be first in the oven.
Tea tonight was baked potato, veg and one of those breaded quorn fillets that I like. It was the smallest meal that I’ve ever had, and yet there was still some left on the plate.
And that’s the trouble. I was feeling quite well today up until 17:00 when I felt myself beginning to slide downhill. I fell asleep I don’t know how many times in the dining room eating my meal. So here’s hoping that cleaning up tonight will be quick with the new computer and I can go to bed promptly.
A good lie-in will do me good.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about lemons, tax collectors and all of that … "well, one of us has" – ed … where we lived in South Cheshire, about eight miles away, was the winter quarters of Gandey’s Circus. When they came off the road in October, they would park up there in Arclid and stay until Easter.
One day I was chatting to the circus strongman, who told me a strange story. One of his tricks was to squeeze a lemon in one hand until there was no more juice coming out. Then he would challenge anyone in the audience to improve upon his efforts.
No-one ever did until one day, a weak and weedy little man in pin-striped trousers and bowler hat, put down his briefcase and came to have a go. Sure enough, half a dozen drips and a couple of pips emerged.
"Good grief!" said the strongman. "Are you a circus strongman too?"
"Oh, no" replied the weak and weedy little man. "I’m an Income-Tax collector."
