13/04/23 13:26

Sat at Prêt.  With a fountain pen that has had a blank refilled – or simply filled – cartridge installed.  I’m at “Old Street” waiting for my 14:15 appointment with the Clicky-Clicky Man around the corner in Phipp Street.  This Prêt is one of only 2 vegetarian Prêts in England, I’m told.  I think t’other one is in Soho.  I’m downstairs with Auto-Shazam running on my 48% charged iPhone 13 mini.  The car is in KwikFit waiting to be looked at as I’ve finally had enough of the noise coming out of the exhaust.  I’m hoping it’s a quick and cheap fix.  In my head, I’m thinking about £400.  In my wallet, I feel like it’ll be more around the £1400 mark.  I’m hoping they tell me before working on it.

Yesterday lunchtime I hit a wall with the Chromebook.  I have an older one which I think is an Acer.  Rory has an Asus laptop.  This Chromebook is an Asus.  And for a while, it really didn’t want to make my life any easier.  I could call up my 204 pages of typed words for the blog and I could read it all via OneDrive.  Yet for some inexplicable reason, the entire on-line ChromeOS community laughed as I couldn’t find a way to actually type anything extra.  Unless I downloaded a copy into Google Docs.  This would then mean uploading it back to OneDrive in order to use it elsewhere.  Or keep using Google Docs (which I’ve only just thought about.  Not vastly a big issue, to be fair).  I’d then need to keep downloading onto the Chromebook each time I wanted to type something up.  It’s not exactly the most convenient of experiences.  So, what I did after my numerous fruitless Google searches was to uninstall OneDrive, open Word on a Chrome window and, once seeing that it worked, reinstalled OneDrive.  It’s now a pretty seamless process which is exactly what I was after.  As long as I have an internet connection.  If not, I’ll just use Google Docs and then copy and paste.  Or not do anything until I’m connected again.  Sweet.

It appears that the creative recovery is slowly coming back to full speed, now.  Twice in two days (possibly more typing tonight unless I’m too busy tidying up my room by putting things away and finally unpacking from Paris).  I definitely need to go over the Instagram Story photos to remove them from the folder on my phone.  I’m also looking at getting an up-to-date Android phone for the sake if Google/Chrome/Android continuity in the same way that my Apple phone, watch and iPad integrate.  All under the umbrellas of Microsoft Word and OneDrive.

I still need to get back to running but I reckon next week or after the Isle of Wight will be when it actually starts.  The Paris 10k is in June and it’s another short trip but with many a photo opportunity.  If I hadn’t just spent crazy money, I would’ve been buying a camera for this and subsequent trips.  I know I’m more about the writing than the photographs but there’s something stimulating about a decent picture that evokes memories and creates masterpieces of writing.  I’ve decided to stop listening to French music and radio when I’m writing as I felt I was becoming too submerged in the wrong things.  I listen in my spare time.  My creativity in my own time in my own style is with instrumental music.  Unless I’m sitting under a speaker in Prêt.

I also have to start to focus on not worrying about the book so much.  I just need to find a time and space to write little paragraphs on certain topics.  Editing will come later.  I have to get the words out before anything.  Nothing can be done before that.  So, it’ll be firepit, loose leaf tea, Spotify and the failing light in the garden to see me through these special times.  Summer nights, here I come.  With the Chromebook, of course.