Fool's gold

  

At the weekend I went down the park on a mission. I needed a motivator and I had one. There is a local online newspaper which mostly runs on Facebook. It used to be very good but now though it has gone down the road of wanting cash for some articles otherwise they are hidden. It is not so good. I will say its only a couple of pound I think a month and that money does go to charity but I disagree with that line entirely. It gets enough donations as it is. The guy who runs it has had all elements paid for by donations. Why then hide articles from people who cannot afford it as many cannot? Look at how many people are using food banks. And even if you can afford it you may not like making online payments. For certain members of society the process might be too much for them as well. 

Anyway I'll read the free stuff from time to time and the other day I noticed a story about a sinkhole which had opened up in the local park. Not surprising in an old mining town. So I went down the park to take pictures and have a wee look. I got a good walk, more than I planned. On and on I walked about unable to find it, or even evidence of it. Disappointing. When I got back I told my wife and she laughed: that was an April Fool. Typical. I looked again and the article was indeed from the first of the month. It did at least get me out. 

Purpose. It is so important when having to do something repetitively. It can be a mind number just the thought of getting out the door to do the same walks day after day. Tedious. Finding a reason to do them helps. OK the ultimate reason I do them is to get better and also to stop my world shrinking. Sometimes that is not enough of a spark which is where the camera came in handy years ago. Its always good to have purpose. 

Fool's day

Definitely not an April's fool but it feels like one. The world is falling apart and my laptop has just fallen apart with it. This is the second time it has happened to me and this one is no less frustrating. This laptop was expensive even though I got it in a Black Friday deal a while back. Everything was great and it was everything I hoped for. Then a crack appeared on the casing. Then another. On further inspection there were screws missing on the bottom but it would turn out to be a lesser problem. Over time more cracks appeared and the keyboard area started to bulge. Eventually after a while I had to investigate and found that laptops had firstly changed. It used to be the battery was a removable device which was handy because if you were running mostly off the mains then you could remove it to save it. Not this one. This one was internal and under the keyboard. Not only that but it had developed a fault that had made it double in size therefore pushing all the plastic casing out and finally cracking. 

That was something I managed to work around but it got so bad even glue and sellotape were not keeping the thing together. It seemed every day the battery inside just kept expanding and the brittle thin plastic was threatening to keep snapping. What make? Lenovo- never again. Finally this week the joint between the screen and the rest of the laptop broke off and could not be put back together. The way it was constructed it mean cables did not reach and although I have all the working parts they will not connect together so it is basically a dead laptop and I don't have any money to replace it. I used it most of the day and now I don't have one so that has created its own anxiety. Frustrating. I had it happen before as I said with a laptop that had a known fault which Hewlett-Packard refused to replace. Prior to that I had another laptop which like this one had such a flimsy casing it basically fell to bits. They are not cheap these things and not built to last. Now I have to get by without one which is not going to be easy. 

The laptop is a distraction and I have needed a distraction. I have been trying to avoid all the fear mongering over Covid. The last time I looked was on Sunday and the figures then in Scotland were..

On its own it does not look a lot but each day it is climbing. That is the worry at the moment and after a period of following it I have decided to try to avoid it if I can. Its not looking good. The world has come to a stand still but right now there are no signs of an end to it. The virus that is not the world, thankfully.