Shiralee: Winter 2012/13 # 12

Wednesday 6^th February

 We had a short flurry of snow yesterday afternoon, and it’s still pretty cold this morning. We drove into Burton this morning for my eye test at Boots. Ever since purchasing my Vari-focal glasses, they have never measured up to the reading glasses, in that I am unable to read with them for any length of time. The optician did suggest sending them off for new lenses, at their expense, but that would mean being without them for a couple of weeks. In the end we decided to leave it until next November, when I’ll be due another eye test.

 The Cook Shop in Burton has an ‘Everything Must Go’ sale on, so we popped in there for a Casserole Dish that can be used both on the hob and in the oven. We are now the proud owners of a very heavy dish, which cost us the princely sum of £30. They also had a stainless steel one at about £47, but that was too big for us two.

 I am sitting here at the laptop, at 2.30 pm; a most unusual event; because I’m hoping the techy at ‘Three’ will phone and cure this continuing problem of being unable to send emails. Originally the problem was with being unable to forward multiple messages, as you already know, but it escalated a few days ago, into being unable to send emails at all. This problem applies to Outlook 2003 and 2010. I’ve tried all the settings as suggested by ‘Three’, along with those suggested by Absolute Email, but all to no avail. I even tried setting up Mozilla Thunderbird, but that simply adopted my Outlook settings, so I was no better off.

 We seem to be doing quite well on our ‘Bikers’ diet, even though we only lost 1lb last week and the same the week before. I would prefer at least 2lb per week, because that would mean that I would be down to less than 13½ stone by the time we leave here for Cruise 2013. But, even at this slow rate, I should still be below 14 stone which, from over 15, will be a happy result. However, since we are both determined to get down to something approaching normal, we will continue with the diet until we do. In my case this will be less than 13 stone, preferably 12½ stone. Now, that would be a result!!

 Thursday 7^th February

 I have been sitting at both laptops since about 5.30 this morning, it is now 6.15 am. So far, after setting up the Toshiba, with the intention of installing Outlook 2007, when I tried sending a test message with Outlook 2003, away it went.

 But, I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s go back to yesterday.

 After speaking to some useless techie on Tuesday, who promised to get a real techie to phone me, I received a call from an Asian female who, with lots of patronising, eventually suggested that, since I pay them to be able to go online and am able to do so, the fact that I am unable to send emails through Outlook, is not their problem. Great!!

 Anyway, back to this morning. As I said, the first message went out OK using 2003. So, I then booted up the Sony and tried again and, once again using 2010, success. I am now wondering just what the heck is going on here.

 I emailed my findings to Absolute Email and then adjusted my Outlook settings on both machines to those recommended by Absolute. No luck there though. The conclusion I feel I must come to, is that I have an intermittent problem, not just with Absolute, but with Outlook, because sometimes I can send with Three’s settings, but can’t send at all using those given to me by Absolute.

 There are now four more messages awaiting the attention of the techies at Absolute Email. They are now the only people I can work with since Three don’t want to know. However, once I hear from Absolute regarding my efforts this morning, I will then decide whether or not to write to Three’s head office with a formal complaint. It wouldn’t be the first time.

 Watch this space!!

 Actually, that won’t be necessary, because I am going to post this blog now, so you all know about this on-going problem. It does seem to be intermittent, and I can receive emails on all settings. I am simply having problems sending.

 All the best from

 Dave, Sheila and Rusty, who is totally oblivious to all this furore.