Posted by: admin in Happiness, Computers on
Tuesday 30 October, 2007
Yep, that's me. But these aren't words you can use against my luscious new Mac laptop and the all new and shiny Mac Leopard operating system. Before I was a B&B landlady in the south of France I had a computer company in England which built PCs for businesses and installed networks. We were very good at it, but it was tricky and stressful. I suppose, if one is going to fix computers you may as well choose the ones that go wrong, i.e. anything Microsoft.
All that work that we used to struggle with is a complete snap with Leopard. Seconds after I had upgraded my Mac to luscious Leopard it had not only connected me to the Internet, it had also found our other two Macs and two PCs and logged me onto each of them. Automatically. I just noticed they were available. Not that long ago it would have taken half a day battling with settings and software to network PCs and Macs.
I just love the fact that Leopard knocks spots off Vista. Never again will I build or buy a PC. Hooray. I'm free!! I can get down to being a real B&B landlady.
So today I have my niece and her pal Etienne here lugging new sunbeds up the garden ready for next summer.
Posted by: admin in Happiness on
Tuesday 30 October, 2007
All was going well with Ali's trip to Australia to see her family until she reached the BA check-in desk. Somewhere between leaving Eurostar and arriving in Heathrow Ali misplaced her passport. Lost, nicked? We may never know. Either way she was about to have to forgo her entire trip. Darling BA moved her ticket on 24 hours with the words 'it's a pity as we were about to give you a complimentary upgrade to First Class' - (worth having - we came back that way last year). Still, at least the ticket wasn't lost.
An overnight stay with Yvonne, our friend and wrangler of the impossible, who lives in London left Ali ready to tackle the passport office. By some great stroke of fortune I had taken copies of Ali's passport and birth certificate years ago and, after a few minutes trawling through an old computer to find them, I winged them off through the ether to Yvonne's computer. Armed with these documents, a skip load of charm and a great deal of height (both Ali & Yvonne are 6 footers) the Passport Office very graciously said they'd have a new passport ready at 6.30pm. Just three hours before Ali's flight and quite a distance through rush hour traffic back to Heathrow from central London. Meanwhile I applied for a new Australian visa to go with her new passport from my computer here in France. It worked, she took off and is currently having a lovely time with Don, Pam, Trisha & Tam.
Thank God for technology - and Macs which don't fail you in your hour of need.
