TV Technology – Meriden
After what seems to be a long time without a break, Mel and I head to Meriden near Coventry. Unusually, the loading this morning went very well, my mindfulness practice has clearly paid off as I managed (outwardly anyway) not to get stressed as the time ticked by. I wanted to leave at 11am and we did.
The journey was uneventful: M3, M25 and finally, M40 for most of the journey. Again, I utilised my best calming strategies and travelled at a steady 62 miles per hour the whole way. I don’t think Mel had to hold on once which was a first. I am not sure where this new, calm Cath has come from as it wasn’t there yesterday. I am a stress head and whilst I truly believe in the benefits of mindfulness, the process just stresses me out more which defeats the purpose I guess. Anyway, today chilled Cath was on duty and I decided to simply enjoy it whilst it lasted – precisely 3 hours.
Meriden is up near Coventry and we arrived on site soon after 1pm as surprisingly we didn’t get stuck in any traffic. After the normal chores like filling up the water, connecting the electricity etc, there are two of the most important tasks left to complete. The first is making a cup of tea which Mel addressed with gusto leaving me to tackle the tv.
I have mentioned in a previous blog about the importance of tv when away and I secretly look forward to sitting with my mug of tea and watching daytime drivel after a long drive. I am sure I know what I am doing with our new satellite system and so all will be fine.
I press the button and my heart soars as the magical satellite dish rises from its slumber and starts on its beautiful dance searching for the signal. Left it twirls, right it twirls, all the while, adjusting its height to find the exact spot it needs to lock on. I hold my breath in gleeful anticipation, I am so excited!
But, wait, what is happening? Magical satellite system is not stopping, it is going around and around. Yes it still adjusts height, but it still twirls like some kind of spinning top (but slower fortunately). I feel the eyes of our neighbours on me through the windows. I imagine the comments judging me about having a poncy satellite system which I can’t work. I don’t know what to do. I need to get tv in Ethel. Mel is relying on me.
I have to admit defeat using the system as Mel pointed out the enormous fir tree bang in the way of the signal. But, I am prepared for every eventuality and plug in the fire stick and hot spot to my phone. Look at me, I can provide moving pictures. Is there no end to my skills? My head swells but slowly deflates again as my amazingness vanishes. The hotspot won’t stay on. If I open my phone the tethering drops off. This is no good as I have to use my phone. How on earth will I manage not checking Facebook, or the weather, or the news, or playing a game etc. Quite simply, I can’t.
At the same time as this technological chaos is taking place, Mel is trying to put up the fairy lights (it is Christmas Eve after all). I have bought these fancy pants ones that are tiny weeny lights on the thinnest copper wire ever created and the plan was to jazz Ethel up in competition with our neighbours. However, this wasn’t as simple as Mel had hoped. Firstly the copper wire has been wound up and no matter what Mel did, the wire wouldn’t unwind without getting tangled. As quickly as she untangled it, it pinged up again into another knot. Then there was the issue of sticking it to the windows.
In a previous bout of stupidity, I had announced there was too much ‘tat’ in Ethel and we duly removed items we didn’t need (Mel and I disagree on what constitutes ‘need’ but as ever, she was right). Unfortunately, this included the blutack. But Mel, as ingenious as ever, grabbed some duct tape (which she must have hidden from me), and tried to stick the lights up. However, we soon discovered that tape doesn’t stick to the cold fibreglass walls of Ethel. By now, Mel has also forgotten her mindfulness exercises and throws the lights at me. In the meantime, the hotspot has crashed again and we have no tv.
So I have to take over as light installation operative, and have success by winding them around the window catches and hope they don’t fall off. Once this is complete, we prepare for the grand switching on and have our ‘oohs and aahs’ ready and waiting. But nothing seems to be plain sailing with us and the lights have a loose wire. This means that we are halfway through an ‘ooh’ when the sparkles stop. Finally, we manage to put the battery pack thingamabob in a certain position so the lights stay on.
Back to moving pictures. Whilst being creative with lights, I was also thinking about how to get tv and I decided to connect my laptop to the tv and hotspot my phone to the laptop. Then we could watch freeview, iPlayer (not that it ever works), all4 etc. I had bought a HDMI cable specially for this event.
Smugness was creeping in again, and not for one moment did I remember the saying ‘don’t count your chickens etc. as when I tried to plug in the cable to my laptop, I discovered it doesn’t have a HDMI slot.
Now stress head Cath was ready to strike. My super duper surface pro which cost over £1k does not have something as basic as an HDMI slot. How embarrassing. By now there are cables and plugs and gadgets everywhere and Mel is slowly disappearing under them all and failure is in sight.
Then, just as I am about to throw a total temper tantrum and burst into tears out of frustration, a brainwave occurs (to be honest, it should have been obvious at the start), and all I needed to do was take the tv out of the equation and watch tv on my laptop which was still tethered to my phone. Success,!!!!!! Not that there is anything decent to watch, but it is the principle!
Last thing to do was to order Chinese for dinner, Yummy. Mel called but no deliveries tonight as they only have one driver working.
I do hope these dramas are not going to continue for the entire week. We are supposed to be relaxing!
2LadiesTravelling 