Further autumn miscellany: part 1

Back in October my Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop, after a few months of slow running, miscellaneous glitches and the odd rattling noise, refused to boot altogether. I ran various diagnostics and got a variety of output messages, whose meaning I am not sure of but they didn’t look entirely positive.

I am assuming the hard disk has failed, though a Google search reveals some people suggesting it could indicate a RAM problem instead. Luckily the hard disk doesn’t (or perhaps, didn’t) contain much data that’s not also in my Dropbox. As I was half-looking for an excuse to buy a new laptop anyway, I’ve just retired the Dell for the moment, though will have to sort it out at some stage. In the meantime, loving my new 17” HP Pavilion with its Bang & Olufsen keyboard.

I bought the Dell new in 2009 - am assuming that 7 years is a reasonable lifespan for a laptop. Have to note though that the Mesh desktop PC I bought with Ray in 2005 does still boot up, though admittedly it doesn't then do much else with any speed.

(Probably) RIP Dell

Since the demise of Sunrise, have been enjoying the Google Calendar app for organising my life. Particularly taken with the way it adds cute little pictures of the location of an appointment, provided you've entered some location information. It added this picture of the actual reception area at Prospect Street Dental Practice, with one of the actual receptionists.

I was a bit less impressed with this supposed image of Maidenhead it added to an appointment to meet Ray's mum - even photographed in a favourable light Maidenhead doesn't look anything like that.

On 11 November a group of us went to see Jenny Éclair at South Street, part of her How To Be A Middle-Aged Woman (Without Going Insane) tour. Apart from Ruth and me, there was Helen, Ali, Alison and Linda, a colleague of Helen’s from the Prudential. Ruth and I saw Éclair previously at the Hexagon a few years ago, but I think it was the first time for the others. The show was pretty funny and fair play to Éclair for coming on in her underwear, though she puts some clothes on reasonably soon. Glancing over Eclair's Wikipedia entry, she’s now 56, has a long-term partner and a daughter who writes plays.

Before the show, we went for dinner at the Oracle branch of Bella Italia, which was nice though Ruth and I are still mourning the loss of our favoured Queen Victoria Street branch. It is, thankfully, immortalized in the Liam Smalley painting Ruth bought on the Caversham Arts Trail a few years ago and which is currently languishing in bedroom 3, though usually it’s on the living room wall.

Random day in London the following day. I took the train up early-ish and did my daily 3-mile walk as part of my ongoing ‘Give It 100’ challenge. This included a pleasant walk through Regent’s Park, taking in some of the sculptures in the Frieze Sculpture Park, apparently open until early January.

'Women', by Huang Rui

Regent's Park view

Also included a visit to The Conran Shop, where I spotted lots of lovely potential stocking-fillers, if only I didn’t mind a stocking costing over £100. Couldn’t resist texting Ruth that I was in there.

Ruth took a later train up and we met for lunch in Heal’s lovely Ambrose Café, before mooching around Heal’s, Habitat and various other shops looking at the Christmas displays, before taking the train back to Reading. I bought a fun non-traditional bauble wreath in Paperchase, which is now adorning the front door.

Early the following morning Ray picked me up in his camper van for an early outing. We drove over to Winter Hill, discovering with some disappointment that the National Trust has blocked off its car parks at the top of the hill, thereby depriving ordinary proles of the view. We parked lower down by Cookham Dean Common and cooked breakfast, Ray showing off his new tiny hob, miniature kitchen gadgets etc.

After this we drove over to Pinkneys Green and parked at the Cricket Club, and went for a walk of a few miles or so across the green and down into Maidenhead, via a snoop at the exclusive and nice Camley Park Drive. The walk took us via Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, where we stopped for a welcome hot drink.

Norden Farm

We walked back into Maidenhead and via Boyn Grove park - where we visited this splendid tree Ray remembered - to Ray's parents' house, where we had a cup of tea with Ray's parents, his brother Lee and Lee's circa 10-year-old son Joseph, before making our way back to Reading.

More amusing labelling from Waitrose. I'm not quite seeing the necessity for the red sticker, but perhaps I'm missing something.

Finally: my tastes in TV become ever classier, as evidenced by this further text exchange: