Macbook Air Causing Problems

Virtually all the posts on this blog have been written on a Macintosh computer, first on our iMac, a large-screen, desk-top model, which sits on a desk in the corner of our bedroom. It is now somewhat redundant, having been purchased in around 2007. It has become very slow, needs up-grading with the latest operating system, but I doubt very much that it will work on the most up to date version of the OSX operating system. So I transferred to using Carol's MacBook Air, which she purchased through Milton Keynes Academy. It has worked perfectly well up to now, but it did have a slight hiccup when it refused to start up a couple of months ago but it seemed to right itself after a day or so. But a day or two ago it simply refused to open and all I get is a grey screen. It is usually turned off and kept on charge, and then turned on when it's needed, but still nothing. I am now using another laptop, bought by Carol for Academy work, a Toshiba, and I'm managing very well with it. It is a good deal bigger than the MacBook Air, which has an 11 inch screen. All this very annoying because I want to transfer a lot of my writing onto word processing. We also have a Samsung Galaxy tablet computer with a 10 inch screen, but that seems to have gone on go-slow, probably because it is several years also and I realize, like most computers, they need up-grading every couple of years. As such, it has been quietly retired, much like the iMac.

Faulty Technology

I do a number of 'on-line' surveys and get paid for doing them. Some you accrue points which can be used to convert into vouchers for a number of well-known retail outlets, or they can be converted into Amazon points. I have managed to get quite a few items from Amazon, books, a digital watch, an external hard-drive for the iMac, as well as managing to get a microwave, an electric iron and a mini DVD player as well as a Sony e-reader from Argos and Curry's. I had a cheque to pay into my Nationwide account come in the post on Saturday and decided to go into the city centre to pay it into the account. The branch has a couple of automated machines that allow you to pay in cash, cheques as well as the usual A.T.M. functions found on most other 'hole-in-the-wall' machines. I put in my cashcard and pressed the relevant keys in order to pay in the cheque. I put the cheque in the slot as indicated, to have it immediately rejected and spat out unceremoniously. I had thought that I had managed to put it in the slot in the correct way, as indicated by the illustration shown on screen. But again it was rejected. It grabbed the cheque in a very brisk fashion. Can't they programme a machine to at least have a few manners? Doesn't seem they can. I attempted this action several more times, much to the amusement of the lady who was waiting to use the thing behind me. I then decided, when the cheque was thown back at me for around the sixth time to give up on the whole process, and was about to queue up to use the traditional method of payment, through a human being behind a desk (the whole purpose, supposedly, of having the automated system would have been to cut down on having to queue.) I went to another machine the other end of the banking hall, and this one worked perfectly, without a single hitch. How can one machine be so difficult, and the other work perfectly? What particularly annoyed me was that none of the Nationwide staff who where nearby made any effort to help resolve the problem with the machine. I was always under the impression that their staff were quite helpful, so this has really changed my view of them.

Milton Keynes Spectacular Sunrise

After the storms of yesterday, the deluge and the high winds, this morning it is calm and peaceful. I opened the lounge curtains to find a really spectacular red sunrise over Milton Keynes, over the hospital and towards Woburn and the distant horizon. As a result, I decided to take my digital camera and attempt to capture this sight and then, hopefully, upload it onto this blog. The sky was changing rapidly, so I had to be quick in order to get the shots I wanted. I had to check that the batteries in the camera were fully charged. It often happens that we take the Fuji digital camera out with us whenever we go out for the day, and it is important to make sure that the batteries are kept fully charged, and it can happen that you think you are going to get a really good shot and then discover the batteries run out at the crucial moment you go to click the shutter. I got outside and then went out onto the Redway behind our house. There were children walking towards the Academy, and they must have wondered what on earth I was up to with the camera. I managed to get some of the shots  (as you will see above) over the top of the hospital complex, but in order to get something better I knew I would have to get up a good deal higher and got to the footbridge over Saxon Street (one of the Milton Keynes grid roads.) and this allowed me to get a much better view of the horizon towards the woods towards Woburn. You can see the traffic moving along the road and to the right in one, a street lamp. These photographs were taken at around 8.15 a.m. so I think I've done well to get them taken and then up-loaded  so quicky onto the iMac and then transferred onto this blog!

Outing to The Cotswolds and Rollrights Stones

Yesterday morning we didn't get up until quite late. It was a reasonably good evening on television, with "Strictly Come Dancing", the finale to the current series of  "Doctor Who", followed by the first in a new series of "Merlin."  We didn't get to bed until fairly late.
The last week or so has been very warm, temperatures reaching heights not normally reached in late September/Early October. We decided to make the most of the sunshine and have an afternoon out. Carol has wanted to visit the Rollright Stones out the other side of Oxford, near Chipping Norton, so we made a sort of picnic up and took the cameras and set out. I have to say that the Cotswolds are my favourite places to visit in this country. Having worked in Cheltenham in the late '60's as a Student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre, I know the area well. My mother had relatives around the Cotswolds, and visiting them was always a pleasure. We would have taken the dogs, but it would have meant them spending a lot of time in the car, and Alfie, in particular, doesn't travel well, and he is very susceptible to heat. We went to the Shell petrol station along Grafton Street and then towards the A5 and out towards Towcester. It was a real joy to be getting out of the house and to be out in the countryside. We have found, when travelling west from Milton Keynes, there is (or was) a problem with the M40. It seems to get in the way. It is difficult to cross. This may sound odd, but you try it. We have more recently discovered that you need to go through the village of Aynho and find a bridge that goes UNDER the motorway. We were trying to get to a National Trust property (Hidcote) and spent around 2 hours trying to avoid the motorway and get through Banbury. We have found this route thrrough Aynho and it makes the westerly journey so much easier. Anyway, we had to go through Banbury to get to Chipping Norton and then find the Rollrights Stones (having looked on Google Maps and a print driving atlas we have.) Attempting to get through Banbury and finding the correct road was something of a problem and this happened on the way home. Why can't local authorities do something about signage? It wasn't very good. Neither was signage approaching the Rollright Stones, you had to really concentrate to see where the turning was to get there and then there was a tiny parking space near the stones.There is definitely something mysterious about this place. It has a strange atmosphere, somehow, very similar to that at Stonehenge, which we have also visited. Together with the spectacular scenery, it makes an interesting afternoon. We visited the single stone which is set within it's own field over the road from the ring of stones. We sat on the rocks and ate our picnic. We had to get something to drink when we stopped for petrol at the Shell service station. The heat made us very thirsty. I took photographs of the scenery (and hope to upload them onto this blog later this week after I have sorted out the iMac which has no further space on it's hard-drive, due mainly to having around 12,500 digital photographs on it. We have an external hard drive ordered from Amazon and should arrive by Wednesday.)

Rollright Stone Circle

There are three areas to visit at the Rollright Stones. The first area we went to was opposite the main area of the 'complex' (as you are supposed to term it, apparently, having read the little handbook we later purchased at the near-by garden centre.)  This is called the 'King Stone' and stands within a fenced area. This is, apparently, to disuade people from chipping of chunks of it, as it's supposed to be lucky this stone.) It has all the appearance, from a distance, of a stooping figure, probably covered in material or something. As the legend which surrounds these stones is that a witch turned a king and his nights to stone. That figures.  It really does look like a person. This is where we sat and ate our picnic. Then we walked over the road to the main site, where we came across the ring of stone, 'some 40 strides across' as it says in the handbook.) A legend states that if you count the stones, on each following attempt, the number of the stones will change! We did not immediately take up the challenge, but as we were taking photographs, two couples appeared and one of them began to count the stones. The second couple had a go. Both came up with different totals. Then we had a go. We made the total 81. Who knows the correct number? To the east, at the far edge of a field, are the ruins of a so-called 'Portal-dolemen' called the Whispering Knights. We didn't attempt to walk to this site, as it was some distance from the main site. Having taken enough photographs, we decided to leave. We knew, from reading a sign near the lay-by where we parked the car, that there was a garden centre nearby which sold the handbook and other Rollright-Stone related items, and where we could get a cup of tea. So we left and made for this garden centre. Having had our cup of tea we left, making our way home back through Banbury towards Towcester and onto the A5 and home to Milton Keynes.

I have since learned that the Rollright Stones were used as a location for the filming of a "Doctor Who" story in the '70's, which makes our trip there all the more interesting. The story was called "The Stones Of Blood" and it was quite a good story. Being a "Doctor Who" fan I am more than interested. I do remember the story quite clearly. It was a Tom Baker story, and apparently the 100th serial.

Writing Novel

Things are progressing well. I wrote around three more pages yesterday.  I've written a further third of a page this morning. It's easier than I'd imagined. Once the thing flows, I just have to keep on writing. I write with a pencil, on a ringbound pad, A4. I have written with a ball-point or a black pen, but I prefer pencil as it's easier to rub things out with an eraser and correct.  I have several pencils and keep them sharpened at all times. I don't like things to be too fixed at this early stage, which is why I don't like ink to write with.  I have worked in the lounge and sat in an armchair to write. It's important that there isn't a lot of noise to distract me. I don't need complicated technology to write on, although I have written other things directly onto word processing software on my computer. I can type reasonably fast. I have now cleared a space in the spare room in this house, and yesterday afternoon, which was a really productive day, I sat at the desk and wrote. I have a comfortable office chair in there. I have an electric dictionary which is good for spell-checking (It's a Franklin Collins English Dictionary, Express Edition,  I got it from Amazon.) I go back over what I have written several times and rewrite if I think it's necessary. Then, when I have quite a few pages, I transfer the whole lot onto Word on the iMac. It's at that point I am able to print it off and read it in draft, and can make further corrections as I read.

Internet Off-Line

We had problems with the internet, starting last Tuesday, when the modem/router got damaged. I had to ring TalkTalk (our internet service provider) to get a replacement. Have you ever had to deal with a company through it's call centre? I bet you have, and I bet it's been a really awful experience, having to listen to dreadful music when you're put on hold, and the droning voice of a woman who say 'your call is important to us.' The endless waiting, the patronising tone of the person who eventually answers. The ridiculous questions. The security checks. I could go on and on. And then, eventually,  getting through to some sort of menu and THEN having to make the decision on what key to press. Or to just 'hold' until 'one of our agents is free to speak to you.'

I eventually got through (after about three attempts. I almost lost the will to live, or to throw the phone out of the window . . .) I had to go through a load of nonsense to find out what was wrong with the router, at one point having to stick a sharp point in a hole in the back of the thing. I used a ball-point pen. It didn't get the thing to work, as you would imagine. I was then passed on to another person, and each time this happened I had to go through all the security rigmarole. They decided that the old router wasn't going to work so they'd have to send us a new one. This arrived yesterday, when I went into Central Milton Keynes yesterday morning. There was a  card from the Post Office stuck through the door when I got home to say that they couldn't put the parcel through the letterbox as it was too big (and thank goodness they didn't as it would most likely have broken the router.) and if I went to the sorting office after three hours I could collect it.

Anyway, it took most of the evening to set up the new router (a considerably smaller and less complicated gadget compared to the old one.) and get the internet working again as we couldn't work out which password and username was which, as the broadband had one and the connection between the iMac and the router had another.

On a different matter, but still with TalkTalk. You have to pay your monthly bill by direct debit. By the time this is due there is never enough money in the bank account to actually cover the bill, so this gets returned to TalkTalk (as it would with any company who you pay your bills with.) As a result the amount we owed got into arrears. I rang up last week and payed the outstanding bill using my debit card, a simple enough task. But the whole idea of setting up a direct debit, you would have thought, was that it's an easier, simpler means of paying your bill, as you can just forget it and the company gets it's payment without any fuss. Further to this, you tell them when you want the money to come out of your account, usually at the time when you have money going IN to the account, so that the direct debits are covered. Well, this is what I tried to explain to the person I spoke to at TalkTalk. They told me that it wasn't possible to change the day that the money came out of our account. I said that virtually all the other companies we pay our bills to by direct debit allowed us to set up the day they are paid. But TalkTalk won't play ball over this issue. I said that they were totally inflexible. I will have to wait for them to phone up so each monthly bill can be paid by debit card. I'd just like to know if other people find this a really annoying business and totally inflexible. There must be  a few as I'd expect them to have quite a lot of customers.

Anyway, all this to explain why I havent' managed to post anything to this blog for a week.