Resolving a partner's IT problems

 IT issues are a cause of some arguments chez nous. When J has a problem with the PC and I attempt to help, the situation often degenerates into a bitter argument. My perception is that J won't listen, isn't following instructions, and is blaming me for everything, and not just the ineffectiveness of my solutions, but the very problem itself. J's perception as far as I can tell is that I am not explaining things well, and that I project an attitude of condescension, impatience and irritability. I have always thought this was a unique property of our relationship, but lately I have begun to think that it could apply to many male/female partner relations.

 The other day at Wallingford Library, I was showing the librarian how to configure and set up her smart phone. Her IT skills are very basic. One of the things I was demonstrating was how to configure her new phone to use her home wi fi setup, so that it uses the home data allowance rather than her plan's allowance. I was asking questions about her home wi fi setup and she knew nothing -- her husband handled all of that. When I suggested she ask him for help setting it up, she said that she couldn't because it always caused arguments.

And yesterday we were at the house of a couple, K the wife and P the husband. K was attempting to email a copy of a receipt and getting into all sorts of strife. Now K is no slouch when it comes to things IT, but I have helped her out in the past with various issues that she wasn't able to manage. I have assumed that P, her husband has no interest or experience with PC problems. I was able to resolve K's problems, and as I was describing them to her husband P later, I realised that he was in fact quite knowledgeable about things IT and PC related, and he could have easily fixed K's problems. 

I didn't ask, but I suspect the reason for P's non-involvement is that it leads to arguments.

But of course I need a bigger sample than three to explore if this is a facet common to relationships.

A pleasingly facile ant-proselytising tactic

 I used to work with Peter, a bloke who was a christian to the core. Peter and I would occasionally  travel together when working on the same project, and I could count on it that he would spend the travel time trying to convert me.  

For long periods of time we grappled with the question of how to explain reality without invoking god as the creator and manager. As in "Without the existence of god, how do you explain . . ?". What usually followed was me attempting to impart the basics of evolution, and Peter attempting to debunk. 

It took me a while to discover the best way to handle these arguments. I would reverse the question; I've been busting my brain to explain current scientific, evidence-based thinking on the nature of reality -- OK then, how does Peter explain the existence of a christian god? 

With this approach, I could actually enjoy the discussions, thinking up sillier and sillier questions to pose. Where did God come from? When did god first appear? What did he do before he created the world? How did he cope in the dark before there was light. Apart from the Mary and Jesus event, how often does god have sex? Does he have other love children scattered throughout the universe? If not, why did he stop at one? It was the very best way to reduce Peter to a sullen and sulky silence without the need to simply tell him to shut the fuck up.

Coronation day

Coronation day. Due to the forecast rain, the large television screen scheduled for the Castle Grounds was moved to the Centre 70 building, a much less salubrious setting. So we cancelled our picnic plans. I ended up watching the coronation at Bob and Angela's after helping Bob erect the marquee for the neighbourhood gathering scheduled for a 5PM start. 

The gathering was good. It drizzled on and off during the afternoon, but nothing too bad. Judy and I were talking to the northern Irish bloke who bought the house next door, where Australian friends used to live. He says he still loves it there, I stopped myself from reminding him that he had tried to sell it a few years ago, so I was glad things had improved since then. I asked him how things were going  since the UK/EU agreement on how to handle the Irish border. He was having none of Sunak's effusions that the deal gave Northern Ireland the best of both worlds, access to both the UK and the EU. He got excitable and said that he wanted the hard land border installed right away, He said that the DUP was on track to sweep back into power after the next elections -- not only are they supported unanimously by the protestant population, but also 20% of catholics support them too. It was strange -- I was the one asking the questions, but he addressed all of his answers mainly to Judy. 

I got chatting to some new arrivals to St John's Road, a couple who have just moved there after living 11 years in the south of France, in the Pyranees foothills. They moved here due to circumstance. The chap didn't look all that healthy and for some reason, maybe Brexit, they would get a better health service here. It turns out he was an old ex IT mainframer so we swapped tales of the old mainframe days, when large mainframes were the serious computing biggest game in town. He liked living in France and regrets having to relocate back to the UK. He said that there was a fairly large expat community in the area where he lived, but he tended to ignore them. They were too insular for him. He said a lot of them had moved either to Spain or back to the UK.  

Bluebells

 It being a slow Sunday, Judy and I decided to get the bus out to the spot near Huntercombe where she used to work, to view the bluebells in the forest out there. We walked down to Huntercombe, the old adolescent prison where Judy used to work, which is now a holding centre for illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. Judy struck up a conversation with a guard who was attaching leaflets to a notice board out the front. He said he's been working there for 20 years and remembered Judy. Since we had just missed the bus back to Wallingford, we went to that old pub on the Henley road near there. It's now a craft centre/coffee shop cafe and they're having a bit of a festival at the moment. There was a large open workshop and among many other crafts people, ther was a white haired old bloke was busy carving wooden spoons. He had a large pile of them heaped up around his workbench while he diligently whittled away and at the same time engaged about 4 or 5 people in conversation. Now I'm in the market for a carved wooden spoon since the one I had didn't cope at all well with the modern dishwasher experience. So I picked out a suitable replacement from the pile and in a gap in his conversations, asked him how much. He said that none of the spoons were for sale as he hadn't finished them yet.

St Mary's Street

 We moved into our flat at 10B St Mary's Street on 20 March. Since then, we've managed to gather the accoutrements required for a basic but comfortable life. The flat is above a shop pretty much in the centre of town. It consists of a bedroom, a good size but not huge, a living room, again big enough but not huge, a kitchen, adequate size but not ideal for two people at once, and a bathroom.

St Mary's street is a little pedestrian only street, just off the town square. It's still a novelty to step outside the building front door and be in the centre of Wallingford. The Waitrose supermarket is two minutes' walk away and there is a farmer's market in the town square every friday. The town square is home to the bus stops as well.  

We slept on an air mattress for the first couple of nights, which demonstrated for us the urgent requirement for a comfortable bed. Which we procured from Ikea with the help of our generous Wallingford friends.

We also managed to get a sofa bed from the local freecycle, which means we can host guests and watch the television with a degree of comfort. We also picked up an Ikea lounge chair which is comfortable and also slightly rocking chair ish.

So this place is beginning to feel like a home. It's small, ridiculously so after our house in Woodend, especially the kitchen. It has a few rough edges which we hope our landlord can sort out. He isn't nearly as generous, forthcoming or considerate a landlord as we are back in Australia, but he eventually seems to get things done.

It's working out, living in the middle of Wallingford. It's good to be so close to everything -- we often just pop across to the supermarket to pick up things as we need them, very useful facility given that we only have a micro-fridge. Also it's good being so close to the bus stops. 

Middle Farm

So . . we move out of our AirBnB tomorrow and into our little apartment in the centre of Wallingford. It's an unknown quantity but we're optimistic. From old friends, we have arranged to borrow beds, some furniture and various pots and pans etc. And the loan of a wheelbarrow to transport it to our apartment. 

It's been a good experience at the AirBnB. The barn where we've been stayig dates from the 1500s. It uses beams salvaged from ships at Portsmouth in the construction. A lot of these beams are curved -- they would have been parts of a ship's hull or some other nautical part that needed curved beams. 

We've gotten used to the 45 minute walk to Wallingford, it's a pleasant if slightly muddy journey across the fields. From tomorrow it'll be a walk of less than 100 yards to get to the shops. 

So, I've had time to reflect on our version of the tourist experience. It's more of a challenge, an exercise in uncertainty, to set up a life in another country. It's more complicated than just booking hotels and transport. But I like the adventure aspect, and it's worth the uncertainty and effort. Although at four o'clock in the morning for the past couple of months, as I lie awake and ponder on the things that need to be done and the things that could go wrong if we're not careful . . .

So far it's been nice to slip back into Wallingford life. The relationship with our friends doesn't seem to have suffered from our time away. I'm not sure if it's just our particular group of friends here, but the English way of relating suits me in lots of ways. It's good to see that Kathy and Peter are keen to ease us back into the rich cultural life that is available on this side of the planet. We turned down the offer of a trip to Amsterdam to see a Vermeer exhibition last week, there's too many uncertaintanties at the moment. 

Establishing a beachhead

The first thing you have to do when starting out life in a new country is sort out the basics of everyday life -- a roof over your head and reliable access to funds. Specifically, a place to live and a bank account. The bank account proved to be surprisingly easy since it turns out that Barclays bank hadn't closed our old account despite me asking them to many years ago, and the account still had fourteen quid in it. So it was simply a matter of organising a new debit card and transferring some funds from Australia. 

The place to live seems to be in hand too, although it's dependent on us passing stringent ID and credit checks. It's a little apartment above the House of Cards shop on a walkway near the Wallingford town square. No parking spots, but Wallingford has good bus connections so we shouldn't need a car. The current plan providing we pass the test, is to move in on March 20.

We spent the first week here with old friends, then booked an AirBnB for a fortnight. It's a comfortable little barn conversion, bed-sit style, in the village of Brightwell cum Sotwell, a delightful little village full of thatched cottages and random winding streets. And the standard labrynthine network of footpaths. I liked this village when we lived in Wallingford and it was a destination of one of my standard weekend walks. The name intrigued me at first and I loved the idea that it commemerates the fallen Brightwell angel, who acquired a serious cyder habit and became the Sotwell ex-angel. But the reality is that the centre of the village as delineated by the Red Lion pub, is where Brightwell street becomes Sotwell street.

There is a good half hourly bus connection to Wallingford, otherwise it's roughly 45 minutes' walk, first via footpaths across fields, then via Wallingford's labrynthine footpath network. After a few trips, I have finally worked out a route  that avoids walking alongside the main road. A good thing about this country is that walking is treated as a serious means of getting from A to B and there are many footpath options for crossing farms without the risk of being shot for a trespasser. 

Back in the USSR

 When we lived in the UK in the noughties, I often thought of the Beatles song when we were returning from trips abroad or returning from Australia. I expect the song will make an appearance on my internal playlist as we approach Heathrow airport in less than two weeks. Yes, we're returning to the UK on a semi-permanent basis after leaving on a semi-permanent basis around 12 years ago. What began as an embryonic snowball of an idea a couple of months ago has now turned into concrete arangements. Long story short, we fly out on Feb 28, 2023. One by one, the pre-departure problems that needed solving have been solved.  

We both have fond memories of life in the UK, and we want to experience what contemporary UK life is like. No doubt there will be big changes as there have been in Australia.