James Peacock brought back the cured iMac and checked everything was all plugged in and working well. He also worked out the CR2 format problem. This was because the camera was set to film in RAW mode, and CR2 is the format for that. I had not noticed it before because the Mac automatically converts to jpg for WordPress; whereas the Microsoft appears to please itself whether it does or not. Given Microsoft’s current advertising campaign in which a series of alleged Windows users work in the phrase “I couldn’t do that with a Mac” I wondered whether Apple would take this opportunity to retaliate with “Derrick couldn’t do that with his Windows”. I am up for negotiation. Interestingly, a set designer called Beowulf, in the first of these adverts, stated “I couldn’t do that with my Mac”. The “a” quite swiftly replaced “my”.
During the process of unravelling the CR2 issue, I nipped out and photographed the seemingly everlasting sweet peas. These are not, in fact, Lathyrus latifolius, but ordinary annuals which this year are thriving forever. Perhaps it is the sunshine and showers that keep them going.
The mashed potato served with Jackie’s bountiful beef stew this evening was as smooth as the main dish was packed with goodies. With this, the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I finished the madiran.
As we were both up before dawn this morning we took a trip to the coast to catch sight of the dawn over the Isle of Wight. There was nothing to see. It was raining and the sky was covered in grey cloud.
John Keats famously described autumn as “a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. We haven’t had any mists yet in this delayed waning of the year. So I guess we must be patient.
Many flowers, such as
nicotiana
and nasturtiums continue to bloom.
There is, however, a certain amount of “mellow fruitfulness” in the form of
crab apples,
rosa glauca hips,
just a few apples on a tree that was laden last year,
and the seed clusters of six foot tall nicotiana sylvestris,
just one pod of which produced this cappuccino chocolate cloud of minute seeds on the poppy tray.
I cannot remember how to calibrate my scanner to the laptop, so the last two photographs I e-mailed to Emily were produced by
photographing the prints and uploading them.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s spiky pasta beef arrabiata and runner beans with which I drank more of the malbec.
Progress on the computer front has ground to a halt. Yesterday’s senior advisor had undertaken to telephone me to enquire about my reloading of Sierra.
He phoned just before lunch. When I told him I had managed to load one picture, very slowly, he decided I should insert an external hard drive onto which the entire contents of my iMac should be downloaded; and I didn’t take in what else; I told him I didn’t own an external gadget and lived too far away from a source to buy one today. ‘Don’t phone me, I’ll phone you’ was the essence of my additional phrasing. No way was I going to spend more hours on the phone on something that was likely to be beyond me.
What I didn’t know when I spoke to him was that I would be unable to load any more pictures, even at the rate of Aesop’s tortoise. When I discovered this I called a Peacock. Peacock Computers of Lymington, that is. Their James is to visit in an ambulance tomorrow, and take Mac off to hospital.
It seems it needs a heart transplant, in that the hard drive is likely to be on the blink. This was confirmed when I could send no more than five pictures by e-mail to my Windows laptop, and, later not even turn it off. Sometimes you need a good surgeon.
Not to worry. I could, after all, put the photos directly into the laptop from the cameras. Couldn’t I?
Well, no. You see, when you upload photos onto your computer, you have an option to delete them from the camera. That is what I always do. So they, like maggots, are trapped inside the Apple. Stymied.
At least I could add the e-mailed pictures. Ah, but. Hopefully coincidentally, the ‘attachment display settings’ on the sidebar in WordPress has disappeared. This means I can only put small or ‘standard’ pictures on, and they can’t be enlarged. I have sent a query to WordPress Happiness Engineers. It is a bit worrying that there is an unresolved forum thread about this problem.
Here’s one I made earlier, in which Louisa holds Emily in one of the pictures I sent to my granddaughter two days ago. That will have to suffice for today, and act as a further taster for the earlier post.
This evening we dined on lamb and mint sausages, mashed potato, and crunchy carrots and runner beans; followed by Normandy apple tart and evap. I drank Collin-Bourriset Fleurie 2015.
This morning, I did a bit more lateral thinking about my computer problem. I did not really know whether my connection problem was a fault of WordPress or Apple. How could I be sure about this?
Well, with a stroke of genius, I determined that if I e-mailed a picture from the Mac to my Microsoft laptop I could attempt to load it from there. I did. It worked like a dream.
Here is the result. It is Aaron up a ladder.
Somewhat strengthened by this I telephoned the Apple helpline. I really cannot bear to give a blow by blow account of the next four hours I spent on the telephone, resulting in my having to reload Sierra. This process occupied a further three hours after which I successfully uploaded one image, but it took ages.
That’s it. Enough gnawing for today.
There was only one thing to do. That was to return to The White Hart that we had discovered yesterday, for a meal. We did just that. I enjoyed such a plentiful steak meal that I couldn’t consider a dessert. I only regretted that I had not brought my camera with me. I had just about enough of dealing with pictures today, and I still have a lot to upload for yesterday’s post. Jackie’s choice was New Forest chicken followed by sticky toffee pudding and ice cream. She drank Becks and I drank Otter.
This morning the brilliant neck of the pheasant, joining the pigeons and doves scavenging for scraps from the smaller birds’ breakfast table, occasionally emerged from the pieris camouflage and peered expectantly awaiting the next morsel to be dropped.
After our coffee I scanned some more colour slides from 1971. The photographs were all taken in the garden at 76 Amity Grove.
In April Jackie had borrowed my Old Wimbledonians rugby jersey. There was quite a strong body of opinion that suggested she looked better in it than I did.
By May, blossom was clothing the apple tree that featured in ‘Becky’s Book’. Michael and his friends Shaun, Jay, and Jamie, turned it into a tented house which they reached by scaling a ladder. I don’t imagine they all four managed to sit on the seat together.
Fruit had been produced by August. From the expressions on Becky’s face she may have found her first apple a little tart.
The marguerites were past their best, but Michael had found smaller daisies, and dandelions, thriving. Becky’s pink plastic one needed no nurturing.
This, the last day of the Six Nations Rugby Tournament, was the most thrilling of my lifetime. I watched all three matches on television. The championship was wide open, three teams being in a position to win it, and if they all won their contests today, it would be decided on points difference. This meant we were treated to three open games where the teams were all aiming to score as many points as possible. The three sides were Wales, Ireland, and England. Wales beat Italy in Rome 61-20; then Ireland beat Scotland at Murrayfield 40-10. I won’t bore you with the match, but this meant that England, in the final match, at Twickenham, needed to beat France by 26 points. England won the game 55-35. Ireland won the championship.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious lamb jalfrezi, egg fried rice, and vegetable samosas, followed by rice pudding. Her choice of accompanying beverage was T’Sing Tao; mine was Kingfisher.
Knowing I was once more going to have to grapple with BT this morning, I cheered my spirits by wandering round the garden and focussing on the cleared shrubbery alongside the dead-end path.
Japanese anemones, leycesteria, and a pink rose have come into view. The leycesteria had been choked by a hazelnut tree the nut of which a squirrel had probably buried in the wrong place and forgotten.
Because of the proliferation of sports in the myrtle I had been forced to be quite merciless in the pruning. It is therefore gratifying to see the shrub in bloom, and new shoots burgeoning. Jackie has planted a hardy fuchsia and a heuchera here, with a labelled vinca for eventual ground cover; and, a little further along, has covered the unsightly septic tank lid with various pots perched on a section of an IKEA wardrobe. For the first two hours of the afternoon, my BT battle continued. The best report I can give is that, having satisfied the robot, I did not have to wait to speak to an adviser. I don’t think he is all that familiar with either Apple or Blackberry. However, the poor man did his best. When I had tried to access e-mails on the iMac I was shown a circular symbol with a wavy line inside it. This, I have learned, means e-mails cannot be accessed. I clicked on it and read that they were unobtainable because of the server being off-line. ‘Connection Doctor’ was one of the options I could select. I did, and was linked to a Yahoo site which wasn’t much use in providing a cure. That is why I had phoned BT. The auxiliary nurse to whom I was linked tried a number of avenues, but I don’t think he recognised the symbol I was describing. Eventually he guided me through opening a second account, which did, temporarily it transpired, receive e-mails. He was even less successful with Blackberry, and I told him I would try to resolve that one myself. I had a bit of a rest, then felt brave enough to tackle the Blackberry. It was, after all, Blackberry whose message provided me on 11th of my first inkling that there was anything wrong. Instructions were given as to how to verify the account. The option of using the device was exactly the same as the BT adviser had tried. The other option was the on-line version. I tried that, but was told I was giving the wrong password. I tried the ‘forgotten password’ option, which meant they would send it to me by e-mail…………………… I think you know what comes next. A call to O2 furnished me with the password, but I still couldn’t do anything with it. Never mind, I thought, Apple doesn’t really need anything with it, if it is suitably cooked. It was then that I found that the Apple had gone off the boil. I now had three accounts showing; two with the wavy lines, and one indicating that I had a new message. But when I clicked on that no message came up. It was now time to telephone Apple Care. Paul, when he heard what was on my screen, and even more when he saw it, described it as a mess. Apple have an interesting way of helping whilst viewing your screen. Instead of taking your screen over, as do BT, they have a red arrow with which they indicate what they want you to click on. ‘What have they done?’ was what he needed to discover. But first he had to erase it all and start again. He then got me up and running, hopefully, this time, permanently. The process employed by Apple’s Paul, puts me in mind of the tale of the unprepossessing pins, recounted by Bill Eales many years ago. As I recall, the unfortunate owner of these legs, on entering a classroom, was asked where he got them, and told to ‘rub ’em out and do ’em again’. Maybe it was apocryphal.
Whilst I was becoming gradually more heated in the cool of the sitting room, Jackie was attempting to keep cool in the heat of the bottom of the garden, the sun reflecting off the concrete, where she continued her transformation of that area. We dined this evening at Daniels (sic) Fish and Chip restaurant in Highcliffe. The food was very fresh and crispy and the service excellent. We both had cod. Jackie supplemented hers with onion rings. My choice was calumari. She drank diet Pepsi and I drank tea. One of the e-mails I did receive when we returned home was from BT, promising a month’s free broadband.
