29April1996

My dear folks,

Was it Jacob who wrestled with the angel, as I seem to recall? Whoever it was, his struggles pale into insignificance compared to my own. I fought all afternoon to get 2 new computer programmes to work. The campaign entailed some 14 phone calls & endless configuring & reconfiguring of communications software. Each time I tested it, it told me I’d got it wrong again. I felt as though my world had shrunk to the obstinate little box on my desk. Reconfigure it. Test it! Wrong again! Phone the helpline! So the afternoon passed. Thank God I had the most patient of technicians on the other end. The problem since didn’t make any sense!

I can hardly describe the relief when it was eventually resolved - the climax of a month long efforts. Talk about a burden being lifted from one’s shoulders. The need to sort it out becomes all consuming. I understand how a druggie feels, unable to think about anything except the next fix. I’ll spare you the complexities. It turned out that one of the tiny features involved in installing one part of the programme had been overwritten when I installed the other half. Each worked independently but not together as required. Result! confusion & frustration. I thought of Conal’s recent email frustrations in Witbank. Hell, it doesn’t get any easier.

But it was worth it. I can now communicate with Alan & Conal & a dozen other people on my email list with the latest, most stable software. I have to think hard about what happened to the rest of the day. There wasn’t really any rest of the day. Night three finished, I drove home, fed Poopoo downstairs, gave Mavis lots of hugs upstairs - Mavis needs lots of hugs - and slept till lunch. That’s it. I had a phone call mid afternoon from a woman looking for a week at the Quinta (10 to 16 June in Casa 2, Jones) & had to wrench myself out of my computer chains into Quinta think. Same again when I had to attend to some minor “flat” problems later this evening.

The pile of washing that has waited patiently all week to be ironed will have to wait another day, ditto the hoovering & a few other domestic tasks. Tomorrow I’m off to the dentist for another bout. Then there are a couple of flats to fix. Then, if the day is half decent, I may go out for a walk. It’s turned cooler and somewhat showery after a hot midweek. I’m grateful. Means I don’t have to water the neighbours’ garden. They’ve taken themselves off to an Italian island for a week on a much needed break. Jones is away for a night or two - with our former tenants, John & Olive, who will taking her on a day trip to Spain on Tuesday. Crossing the border every so often is part of the bureaucratic rigmarole of trying to settle in Portugal. It makes even computer software problems pale into insignificance.

And how are you, my Hambachers and Calgarians? Conal has sent me an email to tell me how the Witbankers are. He phoned to tell me. I checked immediately but it hadn’t arrived. It sometimes takes an hour or two for emails to work their way through the chain of computers between the sender and receiver. I shall read it with all the greater pleasure over a glass of wine when it arrives. It is not every day that I get an email from Conal.

Blessings ever,
T