Bewitched, bothered and bewildered

I am still on the white knuckle ride with my new PC. I am a little bit more confident today. I guess it will take a while for me to find everything and get used to where things are on it. I went today to PC World in all the rain and surprisingly they let me in even though I was clad in extremely wet waterproofs, big hiking boots and a green hat (see photo) knitted wrongly from a Knitty.com pattern that was sliding over my eyes in a good imitation of Victoria Wood's huge beret in the sketch on TV where she is asking "Have you seen my friend Kimberley she is very very tall" I caught sight of myself at one stage and shocked myself so I am surprised I got a lovely young assistant manager coming to my aid and helping me to choose from the bewildering array of about 20 different web cams one that was compatible with my new PC. He probably thought I was on a day trip out from the home for the bewildered.

All I have to do now is to figure out how to put the web cam and the other hardware ( or should that be software?) that I bought at the same time.

My poor dog's routine is all awry. The last 3 days his timetable has been altered and he is an unhappy bunny. He likes the routine of morning walk, food, sleep then afternoon walk again, followed by more sleep, food, more sleep and then bed.

I have barely put hook or needle to wool these last 2 days. Today I went to my local wool shop in Bury to get some lilac yarn to replace Kacey's hat that got blown away in the wind and found out it is CLOSING DOWN due to redevelopment. The assistant said they are looking for new premises but to be honest the rents in any new property will probably be too high for them as it is only a small shop and I doubt the turn over profit would stretch to a larger rent. I managed to buy some lovely textured bubbly variegated chunky to make a couple of hats for the girls. It was buy one get one free so at £2,49 a ball I will get the 2 hats under a fiver. Photo will follow when I get the web cam sorted out.

I also got a bargain in Thorntons chocolate shop. A box of Christmas milk chocolate covered fudge,raisins and toffi-chocs for £1.49 instead of £2.99. Naughty I know but it is Christmas. I had put on weight before Christmas and weighed myself today and to my surprise had lost the weight again. I must be one of the few people to lose weight over Christmas. Mind you if I eat the whole box tonight then it will all be back again by tomorrow!

Quite an eventful day

Today has been a busy one. Darren called to help me with my E bay account and started fiddling with my PC and trying to clear up a lot of the rubbish that has accumulated on it over the years. In the end he decided that I really needed a new tower as this one has badly damaged sectors due to a virus I got when I was a really rooky PC user years ago and didn't know anything about virus protection etc. Today he put a lot of my photos and patterns that I wanted to keep onto discs for me ready to be transferred (or kept on discs) when I get the new tower later in the week. It's all very exciting. Vicky - when this is done I will be able to view your blog without a five minute wait every time I want to view a photo! I should be moving with the speed of light by the end of the week ( fingers crossed).

I should be ready to try and put things on my E bay account properly once my PC is running faster. It will be like learning everything all over again. Being able to look at web sites without going to make a coffee whilst my PC decides to open the site! I just hope I don't get even more addicted to reading blogs. I have to work out how to save everything I have book marked in my favourites. Perhaps I can copy the http addresses to my Microsoft Word so at least I can find everything again. I would hate to lose the bits and pieces I have accumulated over the years. My favourite blogs and web pages.

I managed to get down to Lidl later this afternoon. My local store is very small and only gets small amounts of anything that is on offer. I had seen the advert that they were having some super chunky and had just the crochet pattern in mind for it. There wasn't a lot of colour choice (there was also cream and a palish blue) and I came away with 2 colours in fleck. Brown base and black base. I had to do a lot of rummaging to get 2 packs of each colour with the same dye lot. I have started the crochet but as the pattern only comes in one size (34"- 36") in the book (Fabulous Flirty Crochet by Katherine Lee) this one will have to be for my slim niece. Once I have made one I can hopefully adapt it by putting more repeats of the pattern to make it the width my other niece and myself would require. I am not making the collar as large though as I think it rather dominates the cardigan.

Today I received a letter from my grammar school best friend and bridesmaid. We lost touch for many years, as she moved away when she married, but have revived our friendship through letters and occasional phone calls. She and her husband have now retired to Anglesey. I haven't seen her for so many years. Last time she wrote she sent me a photo and she looks exactly as her mother did when we were growing up.

My back is a little better today but I still only risked one short dog walk. Buster isn't very happy with me but my back is glad of the rest and I think Buster's leg is responding to less walking over the last 2 days. His limp is far less noticeable today.