I seem to be suffering from a sequence of expensive and depressing failures of what I (but perhaps not most people) would consider essential items.
It started before Christmas with our central heating boiler spectacularly failing and costing a scorching £440 to repair. Before the repair man had even visited this was closely followed by our shower, meaning we had no hot water and no shower… Another £80 and a lesson in how to fit an electric shower.
Next up the TV gives up. £88 to repair please. Shortly afterwards Sky+HD is installed but takes three weeks before it’s working properly. In the meantime I drop my new camera breaking it "beyond economical repair". Fortunately in this case after a brief battle with the insurance company a new one is on the way.
So when I lend my laptop to a friend to take on holiday, I should have known it would be my main PC that would break next. Naturally this happened the day after we booked a safari holiday to Kenya for later in the year. A new PC is ordered and on the way at a cost that I’d rather not share here but let’s leave it at "a lot".
The only bright side is that with a new camera and PC arriving by the weekend I’ll have that new gadget smell to enjoy for a few days.
In unrelated news for only the second time that I can remember in the past 22 years, it snowed here yesterday. Obviously it’s pretty much all melted now but it was fun whilst it lasted.


Photographing snow means cranking in 3 or more stops of over-exposure to avoid everything looking very grey!