30.04.2026 PC disaster!

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  Thursday 30th 8.30 Last night my PC started playing up. I couldn't get any mouse or keyboard to work. The Desktop Icons had also disappeared. When the keyboard and mouse did occasionally worked. The apps I opened from the taskbar didn't expand onto the screen. Just tiny windows along the bottom. With no way to make them function normally. 

 Searching Chrome for the problem on my phone didn't help. The suggestions all needed normal screen and input access.

 This morning I wasted two more hours without success. So I have connected up my mini-PC. Which I normally only use for video astronomy. Finally I have Internet access, a mouse and a keyboard. The LG monitor continues to misbehave. So I have connected up an old 28" monitor.

 I am expecting the new house doors to be delivered today. Which added to the stress. In case I needed my email service. Which I have avoided using on the mini-PC. In case it distracted from my capturing astronomical videos.

 I closed the mini-PC and connected my 32" LG 4K monitor via HDMI. On restarting it woke up with normal behaviour. Except for re-scaling. The security cameras have stopped working on the mini-PC after a software update. The old PC is still working fine with the cameras.

 10.00 59F/15C. Up at 6.45. Back still hurting. Bright sunshine. Another sunny day is promised. 66F/18C in the room. 72F/22C in the greenhouse.

 11.00 I walked slowly to the end of the drive and back. The old PC is still working with the old 28" monitor. The almost new HP keyboard is now misbehaving on the mini-PC! Now replaced by an old Logitech keyboard with the letters worn away.

 11.45 The doors have arrived. The lorry was struggling for width as it fought the overhanging larch hedge of the absent neighbour. The driver suggested I get in touch with the kommune [council] planning department. To get permission to cut the towering hedge much lower. There is still no sign of a return to work by the builders. Who stripped the thatch off last year. Then left the drive in front covered in old toilets, sinks and bags of demolition debris! Obviously avoiding paying for recycling as a commercial business!

 Having backed the lorry down the drive to the boundary. We managed to drag the doors around to the rear of the house. Where they will be fitted. This was on his ordinary, factory style, pallet truck. With me pushing from behind it rolled quite well. Even on the gravel parking space. The driver was really very cheerful and helpful.

 Both doors are mounted upright on a single pallet and well wrapped. Looking rather like a modern Tardis. The question now is whether I am willing to pay hundreds of pounds equivalent for the doors to be fitted to the hovel. With my back in its present state. I am rather unfit to be doing the job myself. 

12.00 I have opened the internal doors and windows to get some free heat from the greenhouse. Already 100F/38C out there! 

 14.00 I am going to drive into the city. I am one mouse, one keyboard and a printer short of a set.

 17.00 65F/18C in warm sunshine. Back again. The first shop which claimed to have five Logitech mice in stock had none. Which was fine if you had driven 30km and just wanted to talk to a spaced out, hippy nerd. So I didn't buy the new printer and keyboard there either. I drove into the heavy traffic in the center and beyond. Welcome to Odense. Denmark's largest red light district!

 Guinness has had a 1000 sleeper spies observing and still cannot confirm a single, green traffic light. I watched and waited for five changes of light and didn't move two meters. Odense cannot build roundabouts. Because throughout history, no native Odenseonion inhabitant has ever independently invented the roundabout.

 So Odense is singularly responsible for 98% of Denmark's entire petrol consumption. While cars wait for hours for the lights to change from red. You'd think that electric cars would be the answer but Odenseonions are terrified  of their batteries going flat at a red light. Thereby making international
headlines. 

  With shops exceeding the size of several football fields. You'd think they'd have electric wheelchairs. For old farts like me with bad backs. The nice young man in the vast electronics store carried my new printer out to the car. 

 We were chatting in English too. Such service! I expect he was afraid I'd be on my hands and knees by then. Pushing the printer box ahead of me. As I crawled across the car park. Not a good look! Mind you, people would probably think I was just another drama queen influencer. 😊

 Dinner was mackerel in sunflower oil on toast with tomatoes. 

  

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