The Jinx May Be Over, For Now

This picture on my laptop desktop, is placed here to celebrate finally being back in the land of the living, connected to this essential bit of life; the wonderful www and blogging. This is from my garden looking west/north/westnorthwest. Not a recent picture as I don't have a camera, well not yet.

I have been at this damned laptop (with meal and sleep breaks of course!) for three and half days, after IBM finally backed down and sorted everything, the engineer replaced the hard drive, ensured the wireless adapter worked, and that this time he had put every screw back in the right place and in the right order. Then the broadband security didn't like the look of the new operating system and sulked, until I found a lovely BT technical chap in India who took over my computer remotely and un-glitched the security glitches. That took most of today: from 12.37 to 19.10. We had to keep giving each other 'comfort' breaks. Weird. He: and how is your weather today please? Me: Very windy, rain, but mild, about 6 degrees C. How is your weather ? He: oh yes it is very wet we have it raining too and when it is not raining it is hotter but now it is colder in the rain. ( Wonderful !)

So, here I am - Fingers, toes and anything else cross-able, crossed; quietly sneaking back in, hoping the fiendish gods who have been on my back these last few weeks, don't know I am up and running, and attempt more jiggery-pokery on my life.

On the way to the library twelve days ago to use their online facilities, (as then I was still awaiting resolution of all laptop problems) I met a neighbour hobbling, who I had seen days before at the hopsical, and we exchanged the usual: "take care". If only I had taken notice ...

I bashed my car. Never did make it to the library. Nothing dramatic. Travelling at less than 2 mph in reverse gear I touched a bit of metal protruding out from the post I was maneuvering round to get into the disabled bay that was partially blocked by a county council library van. My whole rear windscreen crumpled silently into a million pieces, held together by my countryside alliance stickers and a blue badge expanded to A4 size with the message '3 metre access ramp - keep clear' which was totally ineffective in keeping 3m of tarmac clear, but held the glass together pretty well. When the glass shattered I didn't hear or feel a thing. Weird. However, when I called the library van driver over and told him, yes politely honest, that he had caused this, he slammed shut my car door, and the whole rear windscreen collapsed into the van all over (and into) my wheelchair. I crumpled. Tears, shaking, felt very sorry for myself, and a little afraid. Then thought: hang on, this is not on - so I phoned the police for assistance - and they were wonderful and helpful and stayed with me until the RAC arrived.

Three hours later, home, for the duration, without a vehicle to transport my wheelchair, I was stuck. The hire car, arranged through Motability, was designed for salesmen on motorways as an extension of themselves, and it offended me but I did enjoy the mighty acceleration and it got me to Southampton very smoothly for my Neuro osteoma check up - but the electric wheelchair stayed behind and my PA had to push me in a NHS manual chair - a shock to both our systems and not smooth.

And the washing machine broke down.
And two of my three pairs of specs broke.

Always look on the bright side of life (anyone got tickets for 'Spamalot' ?) ...

If my claim against the county council is successful, and they have already, readily, admitted the library van driver was at fault and the metal post was making life difficult for disabled people trying to use the disabled bay; not only will that pay the insurance excess ('cos my Income Support certainly won't) there should be enough for a decent digital camera.

Silver linings and all that.

Busy few days coming up, so it will be some time before I can catch up with everyone, but bless you faithful ones who have been visiting while I have been gone.