be gone scowling ways...

i must confess my 'smile' has slipped a little, being so soon into the new shiny year this has caused some fretting about my resolutions and if i have it in me to keep them up.

my new year smile started slipping on sunday and quite honestly by this morning i noted a terrible scowl had taken its place.

"no one likes a scowler Tif!" i hear you cry

"quite right you are, i am ashamed of my scowling ways" i say

fortunately for moi, a lovely nice young man (lordy, when did i get to the point of saying "oh yes he seems like a nice young man", i appear to be trilingual, i can talk english, american and now it would appear i talk 'granny')

the nice young man stopped by and twiddled with things that needed twiddling with, things that were causing my smile to slip. after a little bit of twiddling he declared my problemo sorted and he left with a smile on his face.

hurrah hooray, Mr Internet is ship shape again, no longer hit or miss, according to the nice young man, he will be 'a-okay' from now on out. of course the little voice inside my head pointed out this was the same thing the nice, slightly older man said just a few weeks back when he came to twiddle with things... but i told my little voice i did not have much choice but to trust those that know how to fiddle with such things

so whilst my smile was slipping over the past few days, i did things to make it cling on.

i stitched (almost obsessively i might add), patching lace and old linens together, i appear to be quite smitten once again with creams and whites, whilst listening to Radio 2.

i found one small ray of daylight in the shed to get some photos done for the book. i felt i was quite capable of doing this by myself (aided by Carlos my camera), but little olive felt otherwise.

i pondered my written word, for Janine tells me there can be no more procrastinating, i need to pull my knee socks up and get cracking with my tippity typing. i told her i would do my utmost best and so today i sat down to start!!!! i conquered my fear of the 'word document' and its automatic layout thingy.

actually that is a complete fib, i did not. instead i sat down, then immediately stood up. upon which i did 'a rant and a rave' in a very loud voice, about how 'Word' drives me to distraction, assuming all sorts of things i wish to do, that i do not, for i do not wish to double space, nor do i wish to suddenly be put into 'bullet point' mode. nor do i wish to have to tell 'word' this every single blimen' time i sit down to tippity type...

dearest readers, it all came out, every single thing that bugs the hell out of me on my computer (things my man felt it wise to install but on installation regretted due to his wife's meltdown, i do not like change, have i mentioned that before, technical change is not good for a dinosaur such as myself) my words continued to pour out, accompanied by flowery words and so my man with a sigh and no doubt a heavy heart (for he has heard it all before) put down his 'laptop bag', closed the front door and asked

"Tif, what exactly is it you wish to do with the word document?"

30 minutes later i am the proud owner of a blank, perfectly spaced, no bullet points, and other such nonsense popping up when and as it feels, fangle dangled word document. my smile was the biggest it had been all week, i reached for my cotton hankie, blew my nose (Mr Lurgy is hovering close by) and felt a sense of peace come over my little computer.

actually i might just blame Mr Lurgy for the slipped smile and terribly awful melt down, infact upon looking back at the evidence, this looks like his kind of doings.

in celebration of my new found love for my computer i have named him Colin. his namesake being my father, my father is quite the intelligent person and continues to be so after many years. so i felt it apt as computers are supposed to be super clever that i call him 'Colin the Computer'. i am hoping my father upon reading this will be most flattered just as i was when a friend many years ago named her guinea pig after me :)

my man left for work (never have i seen him so keen to get to his desk job), i did a token 'pottling and procrastinating' turn around the shed and then sat down to my new fresh 'saved format' word document and tippity typed my first words...

"many moons ago, i was born at home in 1968"

she is thanking you most kindly for the lovely comments from this past week ~ Tif