So, I thought it was about time for another update. I’ve been lurking on the fringes on the internet a lot of late, largely because our landlord’s Sky box has the worst connectivity up here on the 3rd floor, (or 2nd floor, depending on how you count). Why, you may ask, do you not go and sit down on, say the ground floor and enjoy much improved connectivity? Well, that comes down to this device:
Circa mid-70s, this Agni Cuitomatica (I think that’s what it is, it’s all wavey 70s fonts on the front) is a charming butane heater which keeps the room warm. In fact, sometimes it keeps it positively hot. Unfortunately, lugging 14kg of butane up/down the stairs and a hot metal object is not something I really, really want to do. Hence I am living upstairs, with occasional well wrapped forays into the downstairs universe.
A few days ago we had a friend come by – and bizzarely, completely inexplicably, our landlord had the heating on, the fire in the lounge on (which we don’t know how to light) and had chopped wood and lit the woodstove in the back room. It was positively *roasting*. Which was nice, similarly the next day was warm. The day after that though we’ve gone back to chilly, and today it’s frankly *cold* downstairs. Which starts me coughing, which brings me onto another piece of delightfully wonderful news.
Apparently, I have Asthma. This is not, in fact, a huge shock. I have been faintly denying the possibility that I might have Asthma for, well, years. I had this peculiar cough which would (does) start if I laugh too hard, and sometimes if I go from hot->very cold. Given my mum’s fairly serious Asthma, I suspected for many years that there was a high probability that I had it and had largely ascribed the coughing to ‘very mild, doesn’t need anything doing about it’ Asthma. Unfortunately, the Matron at work disagreed when I called in sick coughing an insane amount as a follow up to my cold.
Having been seen, and doled out an Inhaler, a Peak flow meter and instructions to keep an Asthma diary for 6 weeks, it’s somewhat harder to deny the possibility. Although I’m not wholly convinced that I actually *do* have Asthma, because some of the time the inhaler seems fairly definitively to be ‘doing something’, and other times it seems to, well, not have helped at all.
So, we’ll see where we’re at after a few weeks.
I have finally admitted that ShinySmall, the MacBook of mine is in need of reinstallation. In fact, that’s probably putting it mildly. It’s got loads of cruft on it and I’ve been waiting for a new version of Office before I unleashed 10.6 on the laptop. And now I have Office 2011 and OS X 10.6 to go on. Of course, most of the other software is lying in a storage box in my sister’s garage, which makes some things a bit… more… difficult. There’s other stuff I’d like to get too, like a new Adobe suite (but the stroppy gits say doing a Masters isn’t enough to get a student discount; sods), and obviously I need to get Logic back on here. The Xmas epsiode of DBJ may well shuffle into a new year’s one, or a new year one.
So I’m sat waiting for the computer to do a fresh, shiny back up of my main directory, and *then* we shall nuke the entire site from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure). It’s funny, because this laptop is not ‘old’ but I’ve got so used to OS X’s not-requiring-much-from-me-ness that this whole reinstalling thing – something I’ve previously been very used to (with Windows, really) is a bit weird. It’s just under 2 years since I got the Mac, and it’s been inflicted with (and uninflicted with) a wide variety of hideous, cludgy, interesting, and dubious software. It has stood up to this test well, but now it’s time to be a proper work machine, so away with the toys of youth (apart, obviously from the fun ones) and on with shinyness.
And the *other* thing which is no doubt not filling your minds with concern is, well, the house purchase. Like a fossilised snail, our house purchase is bounding along at the standard rate for british purchase (i.e. you have to keep poking it to make sure the purchase process hasn’t died and started quietly rotting). Apparently, we are waiting for *ONE* sodding search (the local search), which they’re going to poke the council for. Also for the actual signed contract which, I’m told, was with the buyer. I also need to pop a copy of our Marriage Cert (certified) in the post to them, to prove I’ve changed my name legally. Once all of those are in we will, actually, possibly be in a position to exchange contracts. And then we’ll theoretically be down to the relatively simple bit of setting an exchange date (which will, hopefully, fall while I’m on nights*), exchanging and then actually moving. The word ‘simple’ doesn’t really apply to any of this.
I continue to hold my faint hope that it’ll be before Xmas.
And that, is largely the news. Especially because… the back up has nearly finished! Woot!
* While I’d rather not be on nights while moving, I’d rather be moved than not.
