I'm having tomorrow off in place of Sunday, so will have a lovely long weekend. Lots to do too.
{tech stuff}
The new laptop is still working, and I've been going through the hoops necessary to get my free Vista update. Mr Gates is determined to make me prove I have the dogged patience required for a true Windows user. First I had to fill in a form at the Acer website - serial number, special code number from the bottom of the machine, £15 for postage and then got a confirmation email. You would think that was that - but no! You have to fax your receipt to the Netherlands to prove you've bought the machine within the qualifying period. Fiiiiine. But the number on the email wasn't a fax number. Confusion at the fax machine. So I phoned the number and after beeping through the menu got to speak to a lovely French chap, who gave me the fax number (which was actually on the confirmation email when I had a really good look). So finally I got the appropriate bits of paper off to the Netherlands. And now I have six weeks to get my laptop ready for the off. Six weeks!! It can't possibly be that difficult to run off a few hundred thousand DVDs and mail them off. Ridiculous.
I do have quite a lot of preparation to do, because I've discovered that my nice new laptop has a flaw. For some unknowable reason, the drive has been formatted in FAT32 rather than NTFS. I know! Stupid. How can it possibly have a sticker on it saying "Windows Vista Premium Ready" when Vista won't install on a FAT32 disk? Duh. It means that part of the upgrade process will be a reformat. In a way that's a Good Thing, because here's another stupid thing: the drive has been split in two. I HATE this! It's just plain irritating. It means I can't have all my programs and photos and music on the default drive, I have to mess around changing the drive letter when installing things, grrr. So I'll be able to change that. But I will have to back up absolutely everything in a nice tidy way on the portable hard drive (and on the desk computer too, belt and braces) - that will probably take me six weeks, ha ha.
{/tech stuff}
I got the most fantastic present the other day - a rhubarb crown. It's a chunk split off a crown that was being divided. I'm on this Freecycle email group, and it was advertised on there, so I leapt at the chance. The donor, Jim, showed up at the door with a big, heavy rubbish bag. I'll post some photos of what was inside - it's the most amazing thing... HUGE. I said to Jim the original must have been something else and he says it is; his wife got it when she was a girl, it was part of a crown that was 40 years old. Incredible! The roots are like a tree's, thicker than my wrist. I dug a huge hole, sprinkled in plenty of organic compost and covered it over. Jim says I won't get much off it this year, but it should come away well next year.
At the weekend I'm going to start off some of my seeds, feed the roses and do some more weeding. It's been such a mild winter the weeds are rampant. The bulbs Faye gave me are starting to show their heads, and the woods are full of snowdrops. I really love spring, but the weather right now is more like what you'd expect in March, not February.
I've fallen prey to the lure of eBay! So far I've bought two tapestry kits, both for a really good price, and a ceramic coffee filter holder thingie to replace a tatty old plastic one I've been gluing together for years. The first tapestry kit I won in a last-minute bidding war - so exciting! I can see how it gets addictive. The last seconds are ticking down and you've got the winning bid, yay! I'm watching another tapestry kit and a bread-maker, but might not bother fighting down to the wire for them. I'm thinking about selling some stuff on eBay too ... see how it goes.
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