If my writing were to appear a little strange it might be because I am typing on a small, rather cramped Portuguese keyboard that I have borrowed from Inforomba. You may not have come across Inforomba. They’re a computer outfit in Loule, one I’ve been using for the best part of 20 years, and very good too. But their technicians were unable to repair my Microsoft Natural Keyboard after it had taken a bit of a bath the other evening – never mind the details.
MORE JONES SKY PICS
In spite of my efforts to dry it instantly, it squeaked in protest at the treatment and flatly refused to function thereafter. In vain I combed the big electronic stores to find a keyboard with an English layout. Amazon has pledged to deliver a new keyboard to my door within a fortnight, inevitably for a fee. In the meanwhile I am having to use delicate little finger strokes on this Portuguese keyboard. Although all the labels in the keys are in English, a dozen keys are in the wrong places, which is a bit of a pain.
If a moribund keyboard is a nuisance, it’s nothing like the problem that’s caused when one’s cyber security suite accuses one of reneging on one’s licence and closes down. That really pissed me off. For well over a decade I’ve been using Kaspersky and been well satisfied with their services. They come out well in all security reviews. I take out a three-year licence for three computers, one for my desktop, one for my laptop and a third for Olive’s laptop, of which more later.
In this instance, the suite practically accused me of cheating, nor would it accept the activation code. So I fired off a “help” email to Kaspersky and sat back to wait with all the frustration and irritation of those falsely accused. Some 24 hours later, as I was researching the merits and costs of rival security programmes, Kaspersky responded. Their suggested remedy – essentially removing the programme and reinstalling it – seems to have worked, the second time around that is.
Still to be repaired is our channel-losing digibox and our wireless audio-visual transmission system.
GREAT PHONE, THAT!
Under the circumstances you wouldn’t be surprised if we thought that we were having a bad week. We knew we were having a bad week when Jones found Barri reconfiguring the guest mobile phone – her second attempt to modify such equipment. By the time we discovered her, the phone had been altered beyond repair. Worten were happy to sell us a similar model – Barri seems to prefer Nokias – and to change over the battery and chip. Like her half-sister, Mary, Barri is adept at removing items of interest from tables and taking them off for a good chew.
Almost as useless as Barri’s mobile phone was Olive’s old laptop computer. It took an age to do the least task, even opening a simple “text” file. Also, a couple of its keys functioned only intermittently. This made it a real pain to use. Before going on holiday, I had tried with great frustration and no success to install her modem-pen software on it to get her back online.
So while in the UK, with Llewellyn’s assistance, I visited Curry’s store in nearby Southall to buy the least expensive laptop I could find, both to assist Olive and to spare myself. In the event, I bought the third-least expensive, a Lenovo with good specs. I have told Olive that she can borrow it or buy it, as she prefers. I installed the Kaspersky security suite on it (which seems to have prompted my own subsequent troubles) and the modem-pen. Olive is now back on line and very pleased to be so.
We took her into Faro on Tuesday to sort out a bureaucratic tangle arising from services that remained in her former husband’s name. (John died nearly two years ago.) And on Friday we returned to take her shopping and to resolve – successfully for once – a minor problem with her new phone. (Well, it was minor in that it was easy to resolve but major in the sense that the phone wasn’t working.) On the communications front, at least, Olive is now a pretty contented person.
My English class last Monday saw the return of several old pupils, two new ones and the informal handing over to me of the traditional gift that is presented at the end-of-season banquet to the teachers – all volunteers. (I hadn’t been present.) This time it’s a fine piece of glassware, although it’s hard to know what we will do with it as it’s not really a jug or a vase and the display cabinets are full. While I take my English class, Jones takes May shopping at the Pingo Doce store across the road from the parking garage in Loule.
Interruption there to settle a protesting Prickles in one of the study chairs. His normal doggy bed on another chair has been occupied by an overflowing Mary instead. Believe it or not, there are rules that we enforce about which chairs the dogs are allowed to use.
While they’re not permitted on the leather sofas they are allowed on the old armchairs, albeit somewhat reluctantly on Jones’s part.
It’s been a wet week, delivering some two inches of really welcome and badly needed rain. You wouldn’t know this if you crossed the Algibre river bridge as there isn’t the least sign of water below.
It’s all being soaked up by the dry earth. However, the Espargal hillsides have had a real soaking and the dogs return from their walks with their paws caked in mud and stones.
In an effort to spare her floors, Jones has taken to washing their paws down with a hose. I then dry them. The method works after a fashion. We had earlier tried dipping the dogs’ paws in a water-filled tray but at this they drew the line.
Jones has spent some time trying to waterproof the kennel of neighbouring Maggie – mother of three of our dogs - whom she visits each evening with a treat. Maggie had her barrel accommodation upgraded when we took down a spare kennel, which her owners, Joachim and Maria, were happy to accept.
Here you see the couple hard at work shelling their almond crop. Joachim cracks the nuts on his cut-to-measure tree-limb table; Maria sorts the kernels from the shells.
Last night, after a most pleasant supper at the Coral, we attended our first (and probably our last) Portuguese political meeting. The people of Benafim parish are up in arms.
It seems that the parish is likely to be merged with two comparatively distant parishes. What’s really pissed the people off is the manner in which it’s being done, without consultation, at the behest of one or two politicians. So the several hundred folk who turned out in the sports club hall were mad as hell and let the politicians know it in no uncertain fashion.
Whether it will make any difference remains to be seen. The Portuguese government is set on reducing the country’s several thousand parish councils by more than half with a view to increasing efficiency and reducing costs. It’s not a popular policy. In these austere times few policies are.
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