Back To Where I Started

One of the first things that I did when I retired was buy myself a couple of old ThinkPad x230 laptops, one that sat in a docking station attached to my big screen and one that was my carry laptop.  Then Steph came home and she took the better of the two with her to Amsterdam, leaving me with her ageing x220 as my carry laptop, but it was less than ideal.  I fixed it up with a new keyboard and glued it together again and installed Windows 10 on it and it was just getting useful when Tess begged for an upgrade, so she’s got it now and seems very happy with it.  I’d also briefly flirted with a little HP hybrid but it was too slow and unreliable, so it went back to Amazon. 

Ebay searches eventually delivered though and a new x230 arrived today, that cost me only £230 and included a whopping 16GB of memory and an upgraded 512GB disk, Windows 10 is installing on it now.  It’s top notch quality as well, having a new keyboard, no cracks or scuffs and the added bonus of a WWAN card.  I’m now back in my original situation with two identical machines, I’m particularly fond of having a backup like this and refurbished ThinkPad’s make it all possible.

Old ThinkPad’s might seem like a bit of a constraint given all the fancy new options available today, but to be honest I find them hard to resist, the keyboards are still the best there is, they are fast and light, have good battery life and nice screens, excellent security and expandability and of course cost about 1/5 of the equivalent new machines. 

Last night was my best nights sleep, but unfortunately as I was heading to Caffe Nero Lytham it was also one of my earliest mornings, so I was, and still am, really tired.  I was meeting Paul at 9:30 so I had two and a half hours to kill, which is normally no problem at all as I had my laptop, unfortunately when I opened the bag it was nice and warm, which means only one thing – flat battery, so I only had my iPad, a bit of a drag.  Anyway we had a good walk, stopped off at Fairhaven Lake Cafe for a rest and a drink and then I headed home. 

This afternoon has been a bit of a wipe out though, I was planning to get a lot done, but I started with a migraine so I’ve just had to take it easy.  I’ve been setting up this new laptop, cut the uprights for the raised bed frames and treated them with preservative, painted my new retaining wall at the bottom of the garden, had a nap, bought myself a chocolate bar (not a cure for migraines, but it makes me feel better) and did a bit of housework, oh and how could I forget – watched another episode of SGU.