A Windows 10 Whinge

Like millions of others we 'qualified' for a free upgrade to Windows 10. The OH installed his first and then he had a whinge because it was all so stable and problem free. I assume that this means that previous incarnations weren't quite so well behaved when they first came out. It's not the sort of memory I retain.

 

To be honest I never really liked Windows 8 much, but we got along in a ' if you behave yourself and don't crash, I will not scream in frustration when you do something inexplicable' basis. But oh! how I dislike Windows 10.

 

I'm not quite sure exactly what irritates me the most about it, but high on the list is the fact that it interfered with my Blog settings. Hence the brief appearance of a post earlier this month which was only left justified. Not only could I not tidy up the appearance of the writing, it proved impossible to upload photographs successfully as well.

 

Then there was the fact that VLC media player no longer launched automatically when you put a CD in the disc drive, and then refused to let me click through the tracks. This was quite a downer, since we recently got rid of all our old hi-fi components on the grounds that we could get headphones for our computers that were far superior and less space consuming than our old wall mounted ones (which were state of the art and v expensive when we bought them er- astonishingly, now I work it out - about 26 years ago.)

 

I also got mired in something called Microsoft Edge and was constantly offered the services of Bing! Does anyone actually use/like Bing!? I seem to have spent months and years avoiding it, or clearing it off my machine when I have inadvertently clicked on it and it has installed itself. Like puppies and toddlers with your legs, Bing! displayed a remarkable ability to place itself right under the tip of your cursor just as you were about to click.

 

Anyway the OH has sorted out my issues with Windows 10, not by educating me in its mysteries and even, for all I know its myriad advantages, but by re-setting my defaults. So normal service has been resumed, as far as I know. I have yet to try uploading photographs from my camera and then sorting them properly. I know that people involved in IT generally trumpet how superbly intuitive all their new programs and apps are; possibly they are to other IT people, but - breaking news! for some of us humble users they are not intuitive at all.

More from Scarborough

Scarborough is a small-ish seaside town in Yorkshire, I've always preferred its larger and older neighbour Whitby myself but Scarborough is pleasant enough. The major reason for our outing to Scarborough during the Gaskell Society Conference was to visit the grave of Anne Bronte. Anne died in Scarborough and her sister Charlotte, who was with her, arranged to have her buried there almost immediately. Charlotte said this was because Anne had loved Scarborough but I have always thought that it was probably just because Charlotte couldn't be bothered to make the arrangements to take Anne's body back to Haworth where she could have been buried with  the rest of the family.

 

Now as many of you know Anne Bronte is the only one of the family for whom I have much time and as such this was not my first visit to her grave. But here, for what it is worth is a picture of it.

 

 

 

 

The plaque is so legible because it was recently redone by The Bronte Society, who had several of the incorrect details on the original corrected at the same time. I am not sure whether  Charlotte gave the stonemasons the wrong details or whether she gave them the right ones and they got them wrong. The carnation was there when we got there, but I understand that 'we' left a bunch of lilies on the grave, as Gaskell was known as Lily to her family and friends.

 

The dilapidated state into which untended gravestones can fall on this part of the country is amply demonstrated by the one right next to Anne's.

 



Horrible, really.

 

I neglected to take photos at the beautiful hotel where we had a cream tea, but after that we went on to the church where William Wordsworth was married. It seems to me that we can't have a Gaskell Society Conference without reference to WW, which is a niggle because, as in the case of Charlotte Bronte, I am Not a Fan. On the other hand almost everyone who was anyone in Victorian England was, so I suppose it's not surprising that he does keep popping up.

 

Anyway the church and its setting really were an example of English landscape at its best so I took a not very good photo -

 

 

Inside it smelled very damp which was unfortunate given that they had some interesting textiles in there. They also had some rather nice modern stained glass windows.

 

Wordsworth married the best friend of his doting sister, but she - the sister - was famously unequal to the task of attending the wedding and stayed in a nearby house until it was all over and the happy couple came to greet her as husband and wife. This has always struck me as strange. There's something odd and uncontrolled about Dorothy's passion for her brother, but possibly that is a thought best left unpursued.

 

 

The Loss of a Friend

I heard yesterday that my friend Margaret had finally succumbed to her cancer. Long term readers will remember that we went to visit her in March. Although all her friends and family had been told she was terminally ill and very poorly, I was unaware until very recently that when she was given her diagnosis she was told she had about eight weeks to live. In the event she had almost eight months and I suspect those eight months might have been happier had they not been lived under the shadow of expecting to die any day.

 

She wanted to die in her local hospice, where we had visited her, but she was twice admitted and then twice discharged as being too well. So she ended her days in a nursing home, which I understand was lovely, but I find it very sad that she wasn't where she wanted to be at the end. As a society, is it too much to ask that people who are dying should get to choose where they end their lives?

 

But Margaret isn't defined by her death. Her life meant much more. She was a nurse, not a nurse with a degree and an eye on an administrative post, but someone who chose nursing in the days when it was seen as a caring profession, because she was an instinctive carer. She wanted at a really deep level to help people; to make them better, or if that were not possible, to make them comfortable. She was hospitable, intelligent, generous with her time, interested in a variety of things. She taught me a lot about soldiering on under difficulties, about forgiveness, about graciousness to people who perhaps have not always been particularly gracious to you, and that a friendship doesn't have to end simply because your attitudes to the duty of voting are different. She never married, but was reportedly overwhelmed by all the cards, messages and visits she had in her final illness from people whose lives she had touched.

 

I'm sure her funeral will be a true celebration of her life and all it meant, and that's fine. But in the modern rush to use funerals to celebrate the life, perhaps we have forgotten the value of mourning a death. I shall feel more like mourning than celebrating when the day comes. Each man's death diminishes me said the poet, and today I feel a little diminished. I shall miss her.

I'm not a great fan of yarn bombing, but look at this.....

 

 

I thought a day by day, hour by hour description of the Gaskell Society Conference, with which my mega trip south finished about 10 days ago would tire the patience of readers, so decided to do a few 'highlights', illustrated by some of  the photos that I took.

 

 

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote a novel called Sylvia's Lovers (not one of her best in my opinion, but other views are available) set in Whitby and its environs, hence the choice of venue. We were based at a place called Cober Hill, which is situated in a small village called Cloughton, near Scarborough, and we had two 'trips out' one to Scarborough and one to Whitby.

 

The Scarborough outing include a visit to Woodend, the one time home of the Sitwell family, now a gallery space and inside the gallery we found this bike.

 

 

 

It was part of a larger project connected to the opening stages of the Tour de France in 2014 which, for some reason I never quite fathomed, took place in Yorkshire. The various elements on the bike are supposed to represent Scarborough, which is why they include a seagull and a puffin.

 

 

 

I know very little about the Sitwell family, apart from the names Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell, the latter of which I'm still not sure how to pronounce, and the fact that Edith wrote the words to a piece called Façade (William Walton wrote the music)  which is doubtless interesting if you're a Professor of the Social History of Music and is otherwise  tedious beyond belief.

 

 

Interestingly though, we had had a talk on the family on the Friday night at which the (male) speaker declared that the Sitwell parents were 'rather odd, and in the mother the oddness was bordering on insanity'.  I do get very annoyed with men who, without any formal qualifications in psychiatry or psychology take it upon themselves to diagnose women as mad. It is sadly common.

 

Anyway, enjoy the bike!

New China

Oh yes, we don't just splurge on new roofs, we buy china too. Here's the latest purchase.

This is Royal Doulton china in the pattern Rosedale. When my parents got married they were given a tea set in this pattern ( six cups and saucers, six tea plates, milk jug, sugar bowl and bread and butter plate) along with the stern admonition that it was for 'better days than Sundays'. Partly as a result of that I grew up with the tea set kept in the cupboard and very rarely seeing the light of day.

I loved it, all my life. It's a funny thing because if I came to it now, cold, I probably wouldn't even like it, but I am so used to the habit of loving it that I have never shaken it off. It was always understood that it would come to me eventually, and became a bit of a family joke. In latter years my parents used it more than they had earlier, and I'll never forget the day  we went to see my parents and my Dad told me he had dropped and broken one of the tea plates. he hadn't, but apparently my face was a picture. I'm a bit sorry about that because I don't like to think that I am attached to particular material things in a big way, but there again, this is as much about my family, my home and my childhood as it is about the actual china.

 

The OH has an alert for if any of it ever comes up on e-bay, not that it does very often, but this popped up recently. Three coffee cups, six saucers and a 'coffee service' type milk jug. It was a tenner plus carriage and an absolute bargain.

Of course we may never find another three coffee cups for the extra saucers, and I had a bit of trouble finding space in the kitchen cupboards for them. But I don't care. I love them regardless. And if any of you out there ever spot any at auction or in a local shop, please let me know!

New Roof

I came back to find that we had a new roof. Obviously this was not quite the surprise that that sentence might lead you to believe, since even in Orkney we don't have bands of roving tradesmen who pass a house, think 'that could do with a new roof, or door, or whatever' and proceed to provide you with one out of the goodness of their hearts.

No, I knew the roof was coming and in fact had had progress reports from Son No 2 who was here when they started the job while the OH and I were in Cardiff, and then more from the OH himself once he was  back in Orkney and I was doing my long lonely peregrination round various bits of northern England and southern Scotland.

 

But knowing you have a new roof and actually seeing it are two different things. My first thought was 'That will take a bit of getting used to' and my second thought was 'We need to repaint the walls'. Since exterior paint needs a guaranteed minimum temperature and 48 dry hours after it has been applied I tend to think our opportunity actually to do this will coincide with the silhouette of a flying pig crossing an unmistakeably blue moon, but we'll see.

 

Meanwhile the roof has been tested by several hard downpours since it was finished and does not leak. Moreover, by being away I avoided all the nose and mess associated with its construction so that appears to be a win-win. For once.

And She's Back

She, being me. I am also fairly exhausted, determined never again to go away for almost six weeks en bloc and contemplating several days when I shall be doing very little but unpacking, washing, ironing, tidying up and cleaning.

 

I will however take a moment here to bask in a bit of glory; my Gaelic assessment results arrived while I was away and I got a Grade A and an average overall mark of 82%. To say that I was surprised is an understatement, but obviously very pleased as well. It does encourage me to continue.

 

And now before I forget I must go and renew some horribly horribly overdue library books. It's a good thing they don't levy fines for late books here in Orkney.

 

Pics of some of the excitement from when I was away to come over the next few days.