I look in for the first time in a while and see my name mentioned.

I had quite substantial surgery on the tumour on my back near the end of September and spent 7 weeks in hospital, having a further op for skin grafts towards the end of my stay. My mobility is not great and I think it will still be a long haul before I’m up for things like mowing the grass.

I had a fair bit of catching up and sorting out to do when I came home. Both parents had computer problems during my absence and some other things needed doing but I soon caught up with that.

Re the computers, dad’s laptop trouble was just his mouse switched off! Mum’s situation was more complicated and she called a repair guy in and (in agreement with me in hospital as I didn’t know when I’d get her back running) had a second hand Windows 10 machine installed. He left her without email set up and without the programs she is used to, eg. Firefox and Thunderbird. Annoyingly, there was no fault with the Linux box (probably something as stupid as dad’s moust though I can’t suggest wrong and a guy who didn’t know what he was doing with Linux and wroly suggesting her system was very old) and I’d like to switch her back to that one. I can’t get down to do the cables yet though.

Staying with computers, I have also repaired and upgraded the software on my laptop which had been languishing for the past couple of years. The fault was that the screen would either flash or go blank when running on battery. I took the £70 with postage gamble (well I did read up but wasn’t certain) that a replacement screen would cure the problem (the laptop is a few years old but an Intel I7 with a SSD I fitted and worth a bit of spending on) and it paid off.

I wanted it in action because, with the help of dad, I got a 3d printer a few days ago. I need a PC for the slicing software but am not yet allowed to sit down (I alternate between being on my feet and lying in bed) so I prefer using the laptop from my bed to standing to use my desktop.

I’m having mixed results with the printer and only have 8 objects (but printing does take time) I’ve kept so far and the green bowl is damaged but I gather that is fairly common when starting out with 3d printing and one just has to persevere and try to learn from the mishaps. I’m not really sure why I got the printer though – I think it was a bit of a whim but I’ll see how and where it goes.

At the moment I’m just downloading from thingiverse and printing and perhaps I’ll be able to use that for a couple of Chrstmas presents but maybe one day I’ll try to get my head round a CAD program (I’d start with FreeCad) which would open up the possibilities of making my own bits and pieces.