More flowers – 1 August 2025

More work struggling against the problems of being a new iMac owner. Who knew something as simple as taking photos and writing about it could be so stressful.

Today’s target was to trim down and cut out some of the clutter that seems to have insinuated itself into the old iMac, meanwhile hoping that once I’d filled up and emptied the bin, it would have the sense to leave the rubbish there and not bring it back again using iCloud Drive. Why can’t it just be simple, like a ZX 81 was, back in the old days of ‘real’ computing? Ah, but I digress.

Both Scamp and I overslept slightly this morning and I won’t say she was late for FitSteps, but she could have been. Me? I made myself some coffee and started the machines, yes, both of them were on the table at the same time. I hadn’t realised that you could sit the old and the new side by side and control them to a certain extent using only one mouse. A lot of swearing was involved, but I did manage to, as Roger Waters said in ‘The Wall’, “Cut out the Deadwood”. Or some of it at least. There are another few Gigabytes still waiting to be chopped out, but when “Scamp returned and mentioned going out for lunch”, I put away my keyboard and shut down both the monitors. Food comes first.

I opted for Borden’s of lunch. It used to be The Masonic (AKA the Chib Inn). It was almost empty when we arrived and we feared that they might have been bought out or was under new management, but a pint of Guinness for me, and a glass of Red for Scamp proved that it was just a passing phase. This was confirmed by a Mac ’n’ Cheese for Scamp and a Steak Pie for me. Both went down well. They also prevented me from driving later, which also suited.

What I did do was book an MOT for Monday, just so I wouldn’t forget and be left without a car this month. I couldn’t be bothered going anywhere to get a PoD, so the close up of the Rudbeckia became PoD. Cropped to a square it fitted perfectly for the first photo of August.

Tomorrow we may go somewhere on the bus or the train, but probably not driving. I quite enjoy these lazy days.