BAD NEWS & EXCITING NEWS!!!

On Saturday I spent most of the day in the Apple Store in the Grand Arcade, Cambridge. I caught a very early train and was waiting on seats outside the store by 8am. I had my Macbook Pro 15" laptop with me, a couple of external hard drives and all the leads etc. It killed me to get there at that time, but I had to be there when the shop opened at 9am.

I sat at the Genius Bar (the technical desk) from 9am until 1pm! A technician eventually managed to open my mac via his mac, but the news was gloomy – the hard drive had failed. My heart sank, I have had this laptop since 2010 and it still looks brand new – there's not a mark on it. I have been told that 7 years is a long time for a laptop to last, I was hoping it was going to last double that amount of time! The technician plugged in my external hard drive to find that my last Time Machine back-up was on the 26th July, so it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be – I was really worried, as I couldn't remember how many months ago I had backed up. So I have lost all work since that date, including iphone, SLR pictures, documents, adverts I have designed etc. Big fat note to self: BACK UP WEEKLY!

I had lost the will to live by lunchtime, but chatted with an Apple Sales man and wrote down all my options and prices. Left the store and went for lunch, which I had brought with me – I then went to a coffee shop where I sat upstairs in a very chilled room with comfy sofas to relax for a while and think about what I should do, not do and what I was about to do!

Returned to the Apple Store at 4.30pm – the shop was packed out with bodies! It was a job to even move in the store! I had to register to be seen by a sales rep and had to wait until about 5.30pm to see someone (they close at 6pm). A lady then came across and took my order: Apple iMac 21.5" and a MacBook Pro 13" laptop and case, a USB SuperDrive (for DVD's), and 2 USB-C to USB Adaptors (the USB ports in all newer Apples are now smaller (a USB-C), so you have to buy an adaptor in order to plug in your other equipment (with old USB port leads) eg, printer, scanner, card reader etc. I felt sick and excited at the same time! Sick because of the cost, excited because I have always wanted an iMac so I can see everything on a bigger scale – the 27" iMac is far too big and in your face, didn't want this. The 13" MacBook Pro is tons lighter than my old laptop and I wanted this to travel with. It took me ages to get everything into my big rucksack, but then obviously had to carry the iMac with handle on box to the bus station, caught bus to train station, sat on packed train and then walked from King's Lynn station in light rain to my car which was parked at Lucy's. Shattered, but managed to get to bed by 10.30pm – early for me!

Sunday – I worked all day and on returning home, started to have a big tidy up. Got new iMac and laptop out of boxes and started to set up simultaneously. It all started off quite smoothy – I am connected to the internet on both, but not much more has been achieved. I managed to copy over the last Time Machine back-up, but this has only been achieved on the laptop, it hasn't worked on the iMac! As I fully expected, I have no emails coming into my inbox – no surprise there with TalkTalk!!! I have no emails addresses, no old emails to refer back to anything, no Firefox synced tabs, no bookmarks, no Adobe Photoshop and none of my documents have saved!!! I will have to spend Monday evening chatting to an Apple Technician on the phone!

All this going on, with only days left before I go to Shetland! Hairdressers on Tuesday evening and so much to do before I go away. I need to set up the laptop with everything I need, as its going on holiday with me!