Through my own stupidity - my dislike of crowded, noisy places - such as airport luggage recovery spaces - I managed to leave Merignac without my laptop, my tablet - and my deaf aids plus their fancy cleaning stuff. This happened because of the security systems - all the above equipment had been scanned at Gatwick, passed and put into a separate black bag - rather than back into my usual travelling trolley..
At the exit I saw my daughter waiting - so just rushed off to meet her, pulling the trolley behind me, not thinking at all about the 'black bag'.
It was not until I unpacked at home that I realised what I was missing...panic stations.
But my very computer competent daughter was able to snaffle the French grandsons play computer - a sturdy Hewlett Packard - and get it working reasonably well. It did have some 'etats d'ame' and refuse to cooperate at times - the keyboard would jam, for example. So I was able, more or less, to keep up with my essential admin matters - but not much creative 'stuff'.
Eventually I got fed up, demanded advice from my also computer competent son in London as well as my c.c. daughter in France. Their consensus opinion is that I should purchase a 'Cromebook'. The daughter tried to order one on the ever useful Amazon site - and the first snag came up. In France 'Cromebooks' could only be bought with 'azerty' keyboards...I learned to type on the classic English 'querty' keyboard - essential for someone whose handwriting was illegible...
So we ordered one via the UK and it duly arrived in the most amazing
packing ever seen - three boxes, one inside the other...how many trees I asked myself...But shut up as soon as I got to work with and on it.
Communication with the UK and other places outside the Dordogne was soon flourishing. I felt on top of all my admin chores..and even had a little look at my 'creative' writing.
However, reality soon showed its ugly face. My London accountant sent me xxxx pages of tax declaration to study - and a final page to sign and return. So I dutifully read, noted where I had to sign and tried to download the one page I needed...Only by this time the Crome system had cleverly spotted that it was in France....so it tried to download that one page to a French system of 'fischiers'...which of course I did not have...
In the end I had to download the whole document - sign the single page, scan that page, save it and then send it. I dread what is going to happen when I start to edit/rewrite/ generally fiddle with my creative text...
And now Stephanie has confessed SHE put the internet on in French...I wait to hear why but she is feeling rather queezy at the moment!!!
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