No upgrades!

0820/30th March 2022

It was a naughts and crosses type of morning.

Cold enough for ice pancakes.

Then it was as if the contrails all spread out and merged

leaving a thin white cloud cover.

Yesterday morning I was coming to grips with an updated computer system that had begun downloading at the precise moment our power went out and came back and failed again.

Not the best timing.

After unplugging and re-starting a few times, a terse message on my black screen advised me that 0% of my photos library had been reloaded.

At which point Grant’s idea of going for a drive sounded like a splendid offer.

Sometimes up here you wonder where everyone went.

Not that I feel a great urge to find them.

Grant had given me a challenge. He is very keen on making videos and thought it would be interesting to film parts of our meanderings.

So he presented me with a tiny Sony “SteadyShot Exmor”. It is very simple, with just two modes, “On” and “Off”, depending on how many times you press the same button.

Not fool-proof, therefore!

As we started, Grant had a brain lapse. He knew where he wanted to go but not the initial route. So I sat juggling my camera and the Sony, while trying to get the GPS on my iPhone. I wondered if I had made a mistake. Perhaps I should have stayed home and read my book.

Fortunately, Grant’s brain cells came good, eliminating the need for navigation at least.

Now I had only two devices to manage.

Except I was being urged to “film this” and “film that” as Grant waved a hand around. He is good at making videos with a running commentary.

I am not.

You should be filming and me driving”, I said.

But therein lay another problem.

A couple of weeks ago, I started seeing double again.

At first I put it down to a poor night’s sleep.

Then I decided it was due to a minor adjustment in my medication, so I reverted to the old dose.

Problem solved? Nope.

Juggling cameras and squinting out of the car window, I felt seriously challenged!

We went back to the place we found recently, where we can park and walk by a river. It’s lovely listening to the trickle of water, wind in the trees, birdsong and the clucking of wild fowl.

But as my glasses turn dark in bright light, I was obliged to simply point my camera and hope to capture something that might or might not be in focus!

When I downloaded the pictures, I noticed a bird that I certainly did not see in fact:

Dear little chap. A plover.

As we made our way home, we noticed a lot of hawks. A couple of times they swooped low over the car but of course not while I had the Sony running.

Clearly I am no film-maker.

However, these two sweet kestrels posed long enough for me to snap a quick shot.

Arriving home, I found my photo library had downloaded

and things had “normalized”….

…sort of…

It seems the new normal is to include temperamental glitches. Certain images are to be randomly excluded. The new system simply will not edit them in any way and most certainly will not allow me to post them on WordPress.

Which is what you get for upgrading your system.

Perhaps I should remember the rules that were proclaimed by my ex-employer:

NO UPGRADES!

9 thoughts on “No upgrades!

  1. Considering your double-vision and dark glasses, the images were very pleasing. But maybe it is just me, but I saw no video clips.
    Best wishes, Pete.

      1. Create a You Tube account. I did it, so it’s easy. Just add the url from your YT video onto you blog post, and it appears! 🙂

  2. I agree with Pete, with your double vision, your pictures came out beautiful! I have also created a YouTube account to load videos on WordPress (no, I lie, Berto created the account 😌). But I’m no good at making video’s, so we don’t often place them in our posts.
    I hate upgrades … it makes my computer (or maybe it’s just me) feeling useless for at least a week!!!

    1. Well I made it a lot more complicated of course. Grant always says it’s my shitty computer! (Apple) But now I have to refine my footage!

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