Six and Three 63

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Day 63 (9 weeks)

I awoke this morning to hear Andy talking to someone outside, that is just like Andy to strike up a conversation with anyone that’s passing by no matter what time of day it is.

I find Andy chatting to Kevin, he and his wife Barbara were on the pitch next to us. They are both retired and are making there way home (the long way home) after the Christmas celebrations with family at Tweed Heads.

We chat about fossicking, Kevin explained that he and his wife went fossicking yesterday and they had a big find. They bring out their little container of stones, I was thinking they may find just one or two stones, but no, there are dozens of little sapphires amongst others, possibly some black spinel and zircon, amongst them one rather large sapphire, it looks as if it would make quite a big stone, but it would need cutting so I have no idea about how many carats it would come down to.

This just makes me even more keen to adventure out on a fossicking day. Kevin and Barbara have even fossicked at Coober Pedy home of the Opal. You may remember Billy Connelly went to Coober Pedy on his tour of Australia, this was televised a good few years ago.

Kevin and Barbara Day introduced themselves properly and Andy made the joke g’day Kevin said “it is always a great Day!” They were leaving Glen Innes for home today, home being Gosforth just north of Sydney.

Today was not going to be quite as we expected, we wanted to take the laptop into the local computer shop as once again last night we had problems with the picture on the screen. I could not get it to start up properly at all, it was the same this morning. The laptop is still under warranty, but we decided to check it out locally and make a decision on what needed to be done. This laptop is our lifeline and main connection with the outside world.

We needed to get some groceries, they have a big decent Woolworths in Glenn Innes. We need diesel and go to the post office.

Taking the laptop in, the people in the shop very kindly take a look and suggest it could just be an out of date video driver, so he gets to work on it and downloads an up do date one, while we have a fruit juice in the café down the road, Michael gives the laptop a health check, on our return he says it is all fine. So off we go to get groceries and back to camp for lunch.

Back at the camp, I settle down to do some blogging, unfortunately when I switched on the laptop, the same thing happened, the vertical lines and the black screen. I rebooted several times to no avail. So back we went to the shop. This time as they could see what was happening he investigated a little bit more and said, I think your graphics card is overheating. He did some research on this model laptop and said it seems to be a common problem with the XPS.

We skyped Dell, don’t even ask me to explain how many people I spoke to and where the call centres were, I spoke to one chap in Sydney and the rest were in the Philippines, India etc.

One conversation I was on for 32 minutes, most of the time on hold. Anyway, the upshot is that Dell have logged a call and they are sending someone out to see us on Monday. Now I am truly amazed that someone in the Philippines is going to manage to send someone from Dell to Glenn Innes in New South Wales. A small town with a population 10,000 people a tiny dot on the map of Australia. We had to give them the name of the shop so that we can coordinate the Dell Engineers visit. They have explained that the Engineer will have the necessary parts to fix the problem. I do hope so as the guys in the shop said that they have had to wait 6 weeks for parts in the past. It is strange as they are a Dell Authorised repairer (warranty jobs) yet they cannot do anything for us without Dell asking them, they are not going to be the engineers on this and this will be done under Warranty as the laptop is only 6 months old, if that.

Well, if it all happens on Monday then I will truly be impressed. If not then we will find the nearest Dell office, deliver the laptop back to them and go and buy a Toshiba!!

So our day of hiking in the National Parks did not happen, but we have plenty of time now we will be here until Tuesday morning at least.

We have put the outer walls up on the awning of the tent as it has got a little bit breezy this afternoon so this will make it a bit cosier for us, especially as we are staying on a little bit longer.

We read a little and caught up on some chores, later in the evening we saw that Helen and Robin were back from their trip so we caught up with them.

A quiet day in the grand scheme of things, lets hope that tomorrow improves.

A&C
xx

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Comments

[jane]

He gets that from his father!
Well yes, Andy has inherited the trait of being able to strike up a conversation with anyone, from his father. He also had the ability to get into a conversation with just about anybody, and then completely talk them to death!! I've seen people glaze over on many an occasion!!! However, it made him a very popular person, as it has Andy. Hope you are both ok. Sorry haven't been in touch this week but am getting back into my routine of work at work and then work at home!!! Whilst now also having to fit in a visit to Mary in the afternoon - which isn't a chore at all really, it's great to be able to see her every day, something I haven't done for 22 years. For all the bloggers who know about Mom's move - she's fine and has settled really well now she has got to know the staff and got into the routine there. Anyway am missing both of you loads, especially as I haven't spoken to you all week. Kids both send their love to you, they are fine - challenging, as usual but better now they are back at school! Take care and have fun Jane xxxxxxx