Ignorance is not bliss

It is about time I set about improving my computer knowledge, as I have not been able to cope with documents sent to me in pdf format. While I can print them out, I cannot change their contents. So instead of getting on with the main tasks to do with my future, I am floundering around trying to sort out this technical problem. It is the sort of thing likely to provoke wild sobs, bashing brains out, swearing  a lot,  and is a substantial waste of time.

When I bought the new iMac, because of Dr P's feebleness it was not possible for me to activate the One to One subscription, which would have been some help. Now that three months have passed since his death, I can probably manage it, except that most of my time is having to be devoted to producing documents and financial records, and working out my monthly expenditure. Ugh!

I need someone to show me how to do it, kindly and patiently. And to write it all down, for future reference.

Somehow the simplest things seem to take such a long time to do. Sometimes I wonder whether senility is rapidly approaching, and there is moreover the lurking fear that I may not be the only person who has this suspicion. I hope the problems are merely the effects of grief and stress, and that they go away soon. In the meantime, I watch SBS's Letters and Numbers, only to find that my performance has sadly deteriorated. At least I can still spell, although my typing is quite appalling. For this latter defect I blame the wireless keyboard that comes with the iMac, which is incredibly tiny and makes it very easy to hit additional keys. Many of my words contain an additional letter - g in  particular and thus much time is spent correcting ubiquitous errors.

When I was younger I tried to do a typing course at night. I'd go out after feeding Stomper, leaving her to the care of her father, and would come home feeling I had not progressed very far. Stomper, being a perfect baby, did not play up for her father at all, but she stayed wide awake until I returned home. Every other night she went straight to sleep. I never did achieve a typing speed. This seemed to matter little at the time, and it was not until multi-skilling was introduced into the Public Service generally that all of a sudden we had to do our own typing, without ever having been taught properly to do so, and then get to learn computers, which were then in their very early stages, without having any very adequate training. However, it did seem that multi-skilling did not work in reverse, and thus we gained but did not lose tasks/skills.

In the meantime, I am not a pretty sight. I banged the side of my forehead on the corner of my sister's car door, when I opened it to retrieve a parcel. I now sport an increasingly spectacular and technicolour black eye. This is what comes of loving the colour purple. People are asking me what happened to the other fellow.

As loading photographs onto my blog has somehow become more difficult than it used to be, I have no intention of trying to load a photo of my black eye.

My computer obviously realised I was writing about it, and today shut itself down without my authorising it to do so. This was about the fourth such occurrence, so I rang the Apple Help, and was connected to Ben, from Devonport. The Apple Help centres,  I now know, are in Brisbane and Devonport, and while we waited for the computer to do as it was told, we had a pleasant discussion about how lovely Tasmania is.

It turned out that my computer needed its installation DVD to be re-loaded, as all manner of things had gone wrong, and for good measure, we repaired its permissions as well. It is now working much faster, and obviously I should act much more promptly when problems occur.

It has been a busy day, as I went to a film with friends, Mrs Carey's Concert, which was very good, and showed what can be achieved by wealthy private schools with excellent teachers and very talented and privileged pupils. The music education is quite incredibly good - and far exceeds what it was like in the dim distant past when I was at school.  We had dinner together afterwards, and I am just home, and preparing for an all day choir rehearsal tomorrow. Unless I rise early and am very organised, I won't have time to get to the market and buy flowers.