Patience Is A Virtue!

Well, it’s been a hell of a couple of days!
My laptop had to go back to the shop. There was nothing drastically wrong with it, just a couple of small annoyances that had to be dealt with before the guarantee expires on January 23rd! I know, I was cutting it fine, but I didn’t want to be without it when I was dog sitting, or over Christmas and for all I knew they would have to send it off to be fixed. The fan was making a nasty whirring noise – I knew what that was though, it was just almost two years of dust and probably dog hair too, so I knew that just needed to be cleaned out. The other problem was that the DVD burner has never actually worked properly. The data transferred to the DVD ok, but it never actually completed the task and spat the DVD out. So, off we went to Conforama in Auch, where there is a very nice man (who I found out is married yesterday – boo, hiss!) who fixes computers. Also it had to go back there as I had the guarantee.

He fixed the burner and the fan overnight, and we went back to get it yesterday. Unfortunately, it had to be reformatted, but he had managed to save all the files (even though I had already backed them all up on the external hard drive) and all my email details, which was fab. Got it home, got it out, and tried to connect to the Orange livebox with the wifi. No luck. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it to bloody connect. Phoned him, and everything he suggested to make it work, I had already done. Took it back in, he fiddled about for half an hour, and got it connected. Came home again, and sure enough it would connect to the livebox, but not to the internet. My mum’s worked ok, so I couldn’t figure out what it was. I decided to not worry about it for the moment, plugged in the Ethernet cable, and set to downloading all the programmes I needed and had neglected to save! Now I’ll remember to save all the install files! I got most of the downloading and set up done last night.

When I had had enough of that, I went onto the Livebox configuration page, and tried to see if there was anything there preventing me from connecting via wifi. I couldn’t come up with anything, so unplugged the Ethernet and kept trying. Finally, it occurred to me to double check the WEP key that I had written down, and then saved on word. It turned out I was ONE letter out – hence all the problems! How irritating is that!

Anyway, it all works fine now, and I have everything set up again the way it was, except for one program which I will do tomorrow. Computers are meant to make life easier, but when they go even a tiny bit wrong they don’t half create problems!

The other thing is that we had to go to bloody Bergerac today to the airport to take Grandma back. If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you will know how much I detest that drive. It’s at least 2 and a half hours, on a long and winding road, and is a pain. But, that’s the only airport at the moment that takes flights from Southampton, so we have no choice. Grandma can’t cope with larger airports, and at her age, why should she have to?! It’s enough that she can still manage to do it on her own. My uncle takes her to Southampton, she has meet and assist, and we pick her up at the other end. The fact that she is still willing to travel at 88 years old is amazing. Good on her!

Despite the fact that I have had a frustrating couple of days, it’s nothing compared to my friend. She’s on holiday, and had her handbag nicked the other day, containing her passport, phone and brand new iTouch that she got for Christmas. She’s far away, and feeling crap about it all, not to mention very shaken up.

So my couple of days weren’t that bad really, were they?