I guess that many people from the UK will know what I mean when I say that yesterday evening was rather like “Right Said Fred”, but for those of you in other parts of the world, I had better explain I suppose.
“Right Said Fred” was a song released in the early 1960’s by Bernard Cribbins, a well known comedy actor of both television and the big screen, and more recently seen in Doctor Who as Donna’s Granddad. The song is about some men trying to get a piano into a house and up the stairs, and having all sorts of problems…
There was straining heaving and complaining
We was getting nowhere
And so – we had a cup of tea and
“Right” said Fred……
I found a clip of the song HERE
Anyhow, I have the feeling that I am digressing again, before I have even begun to talk about what I wanted to in this article, and it feels like one of those “Alice’s Restaurant” moments…
“I didn’t come here to talk about Alice, or the restaurant… I wanted to tell you about the draft…”
Well, with a quick tribute there to the talented Arlo Guthrie, here we go with the tale that I wanted to tell you about…
The story begins a few days ago when Debbie got fed up with our new expensive rotary washing line not staying up properly. It is a Brabantia which is a well known brand, and one of the top of their range, so you would expect it to work, but it doesn’t.
So she called the store that she purchased it from, and they agreed to do an exchange.
Yesterday afternoon the replacement arrived, but the company didn’t have any paperwork to take the old one away, so when I got home, that was still sitting there outside the front of the house, waiting for collection.
As soon as I came in from work, I got changed, and then lugged the thing, which is a bulky six foot long package, through the hall, through the kitchen, and out into the back garden, where I had fun unpacking it, and put it into position in the grass, using the spike that was already there.
That was the easy bit done, and meantime Debbie had dinner ready, her famous Bacon And Mushroom Spaghetti. Well without the mushrooms this time (good because I don’t like mushrooms), and it’s not really famous, although family and friends do like it, and it’s a quick and easy meal to make.
Well dinner was good, but I managed to sidetrack myself again – did you notice?
Since we had disposed of the packaging from the old line, we decided to pack the old one back into the new box, and you know how that goes – it never wants to fit does it! So we spent a good 10-15 minutes trying to get it in there and the box taped shut, with Debbie’s back complaining (it’s still sore after her injury 2 months ago), and my back beginning to grumble too.
Anyhow, we finally got it sorted out, and I carried it out to the front, ready for collection today.
Now to the second part of the story (yes only part two…), which takes me upstairs the room that we use as our office, where I had to empty and move a cabinet, then unwire the computer, and hump the old computer desk downstairs and out to the garage.
By this time my back was really not happy, but the previous evening we had gone to look at a desk and office chair that someone was selling cheap, and he was coming round to deliver it, so we wanted to make space in the office and to get the computer all rigged up again.
The guy arrived and unloaded the desk, and I carried it through the front door and into the hallway, which is quite small and narrow, and this is where it got difficult and the “Right Said Fred” moment began.
While I didn’t want Debbie to have to lift the desk, I couldn’t carry it upstairs on my own, since although it wasn’t too heavy, it was awkward to carry, and there was not enough room to get it easily around the turn in the stairs and to also make a u-turn at the top.
So we spent a while trying to turn the darn thing over to find the best way to carry it upstairs, with my thinking that to put it on it’s back and to try and almost slide it up might be easier, however I needed Debbie to go at the top and guide it while I pushed, but that meant her bending over awkwardly to do so.
Well we moaned and complained, didn’t actually stop for a cup of tea (Debbie doesn’t drink tea, but that is also another story), but finally we managed to get the desk into the office, and then the doorbell rang.
The visitor was our wedding photographer, a friend of the family, who had brought round our wedding album, so we sat for about 20 minutes and chatted, looked at the photos, and then back to work on the computer upstairs.
The photo album by the way is not a traditional bulky kind of album, but more of a coffee table book, with all the pages produced digitally. It’s really nice, but I digress again…
It was getting a bit darker by this time, but since I know my way around wiring up computers, this didn’t take long. What took longer was deciding where to put the printer and 2 external hard drives, and making sure that the cables were all tidy, and then I powered it on.
You know when a job goes too smoothly that there is usually something that goes wrong. Well this was no exception, true to form for me and my life.
The computer powered up fine, but the monitor would not come bring up a picture, only an error message.
Using my laptop to Google for the error, it seems that this is common with LG brand monitors, and so I spent ages trying to get it working, using VNC to access the desktop from my laptop, so I could see what was happening on the computer.
Well I had no luck with updating the video drivers, checking the cables etc, and I finally gave up, to find that the time was already 9:15. So hot and sweaty, I sat and quickly put together a slide show and published it, and then hopped off to bed, frustrated and worn out.
Needless to say, my “old folks disease” kicked in yet again, and I woke up at 5am!
But, if you haven’t guessed already – that’s another story…
