24 January 2011
A very sad day. The news on the donkey front, I’m very sorry to say, is not good. When ‘Jane the vet’ came early this morning she sadly concluded that Mouse was getting very weak and not eating. It was pretty clear that she would not last very much longer in that condition and there was nothing they could really do to alleviate the situation, so she was gently and painlessly dispatched to the Mouse to the donkey heaven where all her troubles will be over. Of course, ‘my lovely’ is very upset. She has invested a great deal of love into this creature who she has had since 1994 and will be sadly missed.
Yesterday, Mick and I unpacked the computer that had been delivered to us by courier from the AbilityNet people. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a Toshiba Satellite Pro, the latest version of my personally owned laptop as opposed to the one lent to me by the MND Association.
We loaded a few programmes onto it and I got the impression that it was far superior to the other laptop that the MND Association have kindly loaned to me. I see little point in sending my present one back to AbilityNet to try to speed it up in order to recognise, more quickly, the commands on the voice activation programme. Rather it would be more sensible if I was allowed to keep, on loan of course, this new Satellite Pro version. I telephoned my friend Nick Ross, at the MND Association, earlier this morning, and even offered to pay the difference in money, if necessary, in order to retain this superior laptop. As always the MND Association were extremely  generous and Nick saw no reason why the swap should not be made.
So, a call through to AbilityNet, who had also been informed of this decision, set the wheels in motion. The Satellite Pro has to be returned to them to load on some programmes and then will be sent back to me for the final switchover of data etc. I’m really quite excited at the prospect of this new computer which should be that much easier for me to use and as an added bonus has its own web-cam built in, whereas at the moment I’ve got a loose one which wobbles about on the top of the laptop, and with my weak hands and arms am unable to control and focus properly, and for that reason is not at all satisfactory.
Mick e-mailed when he got back to Sweden to say that he was suffering from a wog and cough, which I take to mean some sort of virus flu. He obviously hopes that he was not contagious when he was here as it is very important that I don’t catch anything like that and he has advised that, at the first signs, I asked my GP to prescribe vitamins C and antibiotics.
A new golf joke for you. Saturday Golf.htm