Having eventually got to bed around 05:00, I managed to sleep for a while but was still up early. I got up and went to Tesco to pick up some bits. The car was parked by Homebase as I can get 24 hours for £1.50. I walked to Lewes station to collect my tickets and catch the train to Brighton to take my MacBook for a replacement display panel. A mere £400 if it’s not under warranty !
At the Apple Store someone quickly came to deal with my MacBook telling me that, due to a cable failure over the weekend, repairs now were given a ten-day lead time. It was only a 30 min repair as it was a matter of removing and replacing the entire display panel. Hence the £400 price tag. I collected my Apple Watch as well as a couple of Lightning cables. Back outside, I found a vegan food cart however the server was not around. It started to rain so I headed off in search of Millets to replace my 13 year-old Peter Storm coat. I asked a lady if the shop was up Western Road and she said she thought it was back towards Queen’s Road. Knowing better, I set off up Western Road towards the Floral Clock. Still no Millets! I turned around and headed back east to Churchill Square and the vegan food vendor who was still absent. Not far from his stall was a Greek stall selling all kinds of Greek Delicacies and manned by real Greeks speaking Greek. I was a bit surprised to hear ‘Hella Mallaka!’ in the middle of Brighton. Millets was exactly where the woman suggested so I called in to get a replacement for my elderly jacket.
I’d setup Apple Pay on my phone on Saturday but hadn’t had the opportunity to try it out. Fortunately, the nice man in the Apple Store showed me how it works. Just a matter of presenting the phone to the terminal unit and putting a finger on the fingerprint reader. Much easier than codes or fumbling for a physical card, dropping something else perhaps at the same time.
Back to Brighton startion buying a copy of The Big Issue from the lady on Queen’s Road. How can you not buy from a woman with a lovely dog at her side? We exchanged doggie stories and I confessed to operating an unofficial pet rescue on Crete.
The train departed a couple of minutes after I boarded so I used the first part of the journey to inspect my new watch. Setup is merely a case of pointing the phone camera at the watch face and going through a few questions on the phone. All done before Falmer. I can amuse myself learning all about the watch on the plane on Sunday or whenever I have a spare moment.
From Lewes station it’s a very short step to 39 Greyfriars. We chatted a bit, I petted Henry then Eleanor arrived to pick him up. I popped over to Waitrose to pick up something for me to have for lunch. On my way I stopped at Aqua restaurant to enquire if they had vegan options. The server, who herself was vegan, presented me with their vegan menu. Onward to Waitrose and the first opportunity to use my watch to make a payment. I admitted that I was a Watch Virgin: it was the first time the checkout guy had seen an Apple Watch 3 being used. The transaction wasn’t flawless but nevertheless successful.
Greyfriars for lunch and then the 14:20 optician appointment. My current prescription is fine and I should come back in two years. Mike called me whilst I was in the optician so I wandered to Inter Sport and chatted briefly to Ray who was stringing racquets. A meeting with Mike, who had left the new server in his office across the road from the shop. I didn’t much feel like messing with servers having not had much sleep so we went to see Sue to ask if the UPS batteries had turned up.
I went back to Greyfriars for a cup of tea and then to Glebe Close where Eleanor and Simon were. The elderly HP laptop was sounding more like an EasyJet so we dismantled it to remove about 20kg of fluff from the CPU cooler and fan. Fortunately, these processors are fairly abuse-tolerant.
Then to bed where I quickly fell asleep.
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