COMPUTER WOES

No, not mine….. I am happy to say my computer is chugging along quite happily at the moment, even though it is nearing its 10th birthday! No, it is our daughter’s new laptop that is causing grief.

Our daughter has got back into composing music just recently and decided to buy herself a 4-track machine to properly record her compositions. Years ago, she had use of a 4-track which was jointly owned by our son and his friend – but the friend went peculiar and threatened all kinds of nasty things…… and so, the 4-track stayed with him! I have often wondered why our daughter did not then buy her own machine – but it seems that until now it never even occurred to her to do so.

Anyway, she bought one from EBay (amazingly it was new, but unused). The problem then was that her laptop (now about 7 years old) has been threatening to go wrong for ages and did not anyway have enough space to store the music tracks….. so she decided to buy a new laptop.

New laptop arrived and was duly set up. That was when the problems really started though as daughter has found it difficult to work out how to connect it all up in order to transfer the music from her keyboard to the laptop. She has at least her third lead on order at the moment as she struggles to understand how to get it all set-up.

Her real problem though has been in the fact that during the course of her quest to sort it all she has apparently downloaded free music software. She subsequently found out through doing a scan with Malwarebytes that she had no less than 400+ items of malware on her shiny new computer! Malwarebytes reported that it had cleared them all, but yesterday there was evidence that all was still not well.

The problem for yours truly is that my family have somehow gotten it into their heads that I am some kind of computer expert (oh, how wrong can you be!).  Thus far, I have only been asked for advice on what checks to run. I do fear though that this will not be the end of the story……… 😦 😦 😦

A NICE MOMENT!

Our daughter has been very down recently. This past week, she has been up in bed a lot and we have hardly seen her. I am worried she is plunging into the depths of depression again! She was pretty cheerful at Christmas, but just before it she stopped her antidepressants suddenly without even telling her doctor. She was getting bad pains in her legs and she did some research and found that the antidepressants she was on could be causing it. The pains have stopped, but the depression is getting worse again. You just cannot win can you?

I feel so desperately impotent! This past year, it seems that all I have been able to do is sit by and watch everything disintegrate. I don’t just think that this girl needs some kind if therapy, I KNOW it…… but nobody b_____y listens to me!!!!!! (Excuse my French!).

There was one touching moment, last Friday. Son and his wife have gone to spend a week away in Glastonbury. No, not at the festival (can you imagine it: in all the rain we have been having, it would be washed away!). They are actually staying in a b&b.

Anyway, they came round to dinner the day before they left. While we were still at the table, son’s wife just spontaneously turned to our daughter and hugged her and said how much she loves her and that she feels she is like a sister to her. It was so nice and genuine, it brought a tear (or two) to my eye! She seems to really love all of us actually and to like being a part of our family (she obviously has not yet discovered what a weird family we really are!).

Laugh….. she sent me some photos yesterday, all taken on their short break. There was one of son in some caves with a helmet on. There was also another one – which we found very amusing – of him actually playing crazy golf! You would never in a trillion years have got him doing any of these activities in the past. How things have changed!
🙂

I myself have been feeling very low recently. I have been pretty grumpy with my husband – which I really don’t want to be. My emotions are all over the place though. I honestly don’t understand myself at all right now…..

I had a really lovely day on Tuesday though. I went to my ‘tea and chat’ group in the morning (I call it my ‘old fogies group!). I like the people,  but sometimes it can be a bit boring. The previous time we actually played bingo! Me – a cool old dude who loves computers and Coldplay – actually playing bingo? I ask you! 😉

This week though, we had a quiz – and it was really good, quite hard. I was paired with a really sweet old lady who is nearly blind, so I had to read everything to her. We actually somehow managed to win the quiz though! A good morning.

After that, I went round the house of the lady who goes to the singing group and had a bit of lunch with her. I met her husband – a grand old Irish fella who was telling me that he was brought up on a farm in Donegal. We then went to the singing group which is always enjoyable. Afterwards, it really felt as if I had had a long – and very enjoyable – day out!

I am in sooh much need of many more days like that……

LIFE ON MARS….. AND OTHER PLACES?

David Bowie’s death has attracted lots of attention out in cyberspace (if not on Mars itself!) this week. We have seen his face just so much on Facebook and elsewhere that we are probably all beginning to feel that we never want to read about him again!

I was never particularly a fan of Bowie’s music, although hearing it played now does make me think ‘Yes, I did rather like that’. His music was though more background music to my life, rather than having a central part in it – and I was therefore not going to post anything about his death here. There are however a couple of things that I have seen on the internet  during the course of the past few days which I would like to share with you.

The first is from one of my favourite blogs, written by Steve Stockman, a music-loving Presbyterian minister from Belfast. In this post, he writes about Bowie’s strong belief in God. I was not previously aware of this, nor did I remember that he sank to his knees during the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert at Wembley Stadium and recited the Lord’s prayer. Apparently he said afterwards: –

In rock music, especially in the performance arena, there is no room for prayer, but I think that so many of the songs people write are prayers. A lot of my songs seem to be prayers for unity within myself. On a personal level, I have an undying belief in God’s existence. For me it is unquestionable.

Anyway, you can read the blog post from which this information is taken at http://stocki.typepad.com/soulsurmise/2016/01/my-david-bowie-pause-for-thought-12116-with-vanessa-feltz-on-bbc-radio-2.html (The post is taken from a ‘Pause for Thought’ by the blog writer Steve Stockman which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 this Tuesday).

The second Bowie-related item which struck a bit of a chord (pardon the pun!) with me is a clip much shared on Facebook and elsewhere on the internet of the organist at St. Albans Cathedral playing  Bowie’s music by way of a tribute to him.

This was special to me, as I went with my church on a pilgrimage to St. Albans Cathedral in October 2015. It was such a great day out. It was the complete opposite of the Pilgrimage to Winchester the previous year which was, for me, completely overshadowed by the extremely strange entries which appeared on my blog that day from the weird visitor who was at that time frequenting my blog. I guess I will never know why on earth they reacted so powerfully to the post I had published that morning, but I do know that they completely ruined my day in Winchester as I was so stressed out! 😦

St Albans cathedral is beautiful and a joy to behold. Our priest said Mass in one of the chapels and at the end of the day we attended Evensong. During a break, a little group of us had a walk into town where we had a coffee together and I got to know some of our parishioners much better. A couple of them I now meet at the ‘Tea and Chat’ group and it is through one of them – a lady who I really like – that I now go to the singing group. These would be just very little things to many people – but for me, that trip to St. Albans changed my life quite a bit. I only wish I had been present to hear this tribute to David Bowie played: –

A copy of this post can also be found at http://moreholesinthesky.blogspot.co.uk/

WOW!!!!!!

I have just had some amazing news! My daughter-in-law has finally heard that she has got her resident’s card and will therefore be able to stay in this country. I am so happy for her and my son; I know it hasn’t been an easy time for them.

Sorry I have been a very bad blogger in recent months. I am sure I will feel more like blogging soon as I think I might be feeling a little bit happier about my life in general….. especially now that we are well in January and the Christmas period is over. Hopefully we have a lovely spring ahead soon! 🙂

I cannot stay around longer now though as I have my Greek homework to do. Dear hubby is off playing golf, but will be home in around an hour and will then no doubt be expecting me to nurse him through his Greek homework! 😉

Before I go though, I want to tell you that I am not sure that my blog will be staying here on WordPress – partly because I really miss the fuller Statcounter logs which you get through Blogger and I also have been having problems with the WordPress app on my phone. I have re-opened the Blogger version of HITS, but at a slightly different address. For the time being, I think I will probably run both blogs simultaneously, just to see how it goes. I will  post a link to the new Blogger version in due course here, but if you can find your way to my original Blogger profile then you can find it for yourself! 🙂

A TEAR FOR THE NEW YEAR!

Something happened to me last night. It was as if somebody turned a switch on inside me, one that could not be turned off. I started to cry and just could not stop. I cried all night too (in my sleep) and woke up still crying this morning!

I think it started in church. There was a new year Mass and the priest told us to think of one bad thing that had happened during the past year and one good one. It was not hard for me to think of something bad – and I will award no prizes for guessing what the bad thing I thought of was! It was hard not to burst into tears right then, although I managed to delay the tears until later.

So many of my hopes and dreams were destroyed along with what happened at the end of last January. At the start of 2015, I was really praying that our daughter’s business as a personal trainer would really take off: now it all lies in ruins. She was beginning to date guys and I really hoped she would meet somebody nice and settle down: now those hopes are in ruins and I think she just hates all men.

A year ago, she was living independently in a flat. Now, she is back living with us. She never goes out and is completely dependent on us. It is hard to see a future for her right now. I am very conscious that we are getting older and the time ahead of us is diminishing fast. What will happen to her when we are gone?

My own life has been changed beyond measure by what happened. This is a pretty small house and it feels as if all our freedom and privacy has gone. There have been quite a few arguments recently, between our daughter and my husband (they are alike and have always clashed a bit). It really is not at all an easy situation to live with.

I have to find a way of being hopeful, of believing that things can and will improve……

Today, I have to cheer up somehow. Our son and daughter-in-law are coming back this afternoon for what he says is ‘Christmas part 2’ so I have to stop all this negativity somehow! I am beginning to learn that our daughter-in-law is quite a bossy person (and I really do not like bossy women lol!). She told (not asked) us that she is taking over the kitchen and cooking a meal and that we will not be allowed out there! I am sure she means well and only wants to give us a rest, but I have detected a lack of sensitivity to other people’s… well, sensitivities! I love her in every other way though and am so glad that our son has found her. At least one of my children is reasonably happy at the moment!

Sorry I am being such a wet blanket on this (wet) new year’s day. I pray this will be a good year – for me and all my (tiny handful of) readers.

Take care…. it is a big, bad world out there! xx