I'M IN... UP AND RUNNING!

Yay,Yay! Whew…

I’m in!!!  (She wipes her brow).  I was going round in circles trying to restore my access to my Gmail, which gives me link up to blogger as well. It's because of the way it was all originally set up. I was beginning to think I would never get in to it all.  Why?  You might well ask.

I formatted my computer hard disk. I erased everything off it!  A walk, even in the snow storms that rushed through, would at times seemed preferable to the job in hand;  but, hey, you can’t have everything. You either start a job that takes hours of your life with intentions to finish it,or, ………………..on second thoughts, just don’t go there.  Notwithstanding, it was one of those jobs that could not be put off any longer.



When I fired up the computer in the New Year, after its two weeks’ holiday,  it threw more wobblies than usual.  Also, it was behaving as if it was having mini heart attacks.  A hard disk diagnosis said the disk was unrepairable.  I had seen all sorts of red lines whizz through and  there were phrases like ‘broken link/s’ galloping in front of my eyes....Scary.  So, for good measure, I told the system to check its heart again. The second time it whirled through the whole process and gave the disk a good bill of health.  You would think, wouldn't you, that was that.  Well….not quite.  I couldn’t put my finger precisely on it, however, there was something not quite right about how the computer was running.

Next move: I bought an external drive to create a boot-up disk and extra backup for my folders and files. And that friends, is why I have been stuck in front of my computer for more time than I care to admit to;  holding my breath during the hard disk erase; then the start up; losing, finding and restoring things.  I am still reconfiguring my system and what is called my ‘workflow’, (it sounds good doesn't it).



There’s been a lot to do, but,my computer is beginning to look and feel like it should.

I promise you, all of this fresh start stuff was not a New Year's Resolution. 

IT HAD TO BE VERY MUCH BETTER THAN GOOD

At a funeral service I attended, I was really impressed with what I heard about the life of the deceased, who I will call M. The service was very well attended by people from all over the county, indicating how well thought of the man had been.

This man was the one of the sons of a shepherd. He in turn was a shepherd. A short period in the RAF brought in into contact with the lady who became his wife. They returned to his home and produced a family that today, comprises of grandchildren and nine great grandchildren, very few of whom, had dry eyes during the service. The minister spoke of what the man had enjoyed in his life, his manual dexterity and his voracious appetite for reading. When M retired he returned to farm work.

It is what was not said the was so impressive. We knew, and so did the people who paid their last respects, that M spent a large part of his working life in an organisation that required absolute reliability and ability in the auditing of specialised working materials. His work had to be 100%, and some more.  It was not just internally checked, the accounting had to be good enough for national and international review as well. The well-being of a large working community was dependent upon M's work and he unfailingly met the exacting standards of the challenge.