‘My laptop is having a meltdown’

My laptop is having a meltdown. That scares the living daylights out of me, so when she has a meltdown I have an accompanying one. She controls my writing life and we both know that she is the smart one and I am the dopey one. This puts me in a very vulnerable situation, something akin to a master- and-slave relationship. And she takes full advantage of her status. I always really knew that I should have gone for a proper computer training course, but instead I muddled my way through managing this monster on my own.

On days like this that stupid decision is deeply regretted. This is akin to owning a Doberman who tries to dominate you, and I should know all about that. When my dog Kate came to me, she was a strong-willed, powerful animal, and a smart son warned me that if I did not let Kate know who was boss, she would be the master and make my life a misery. Forewarned was forearmed, so I took Kate on, and after a few challenging encounters she backed off and accepted that acquiescence was the name of the game and that there could only be one Mastermind in the house.

I never achieved that relationship with my Apple [laptop]. Every so often she does the dog and growls at me, refusing to comply with my wishes. This is one of those times. And right now, with corona already in control, her timing is brutal. She is holding my manuscript and refuses point blank to allow me in. I am scared witless that she will go thick and delete!

So I ring my daughter [Lena] and get the answering machine. I swallow an unprintable word and leave a message! Then I ring my son-in-law, who is working from home. I seldom annoy him in case of becoming a dreaded mother-in-law. Another answering machine! I leave another message. They will probably think that the house is on fire.

My daughter will think from all these phone calls that I am having a heart attack

My problem-solving daughter lives up the hill and in normal times would be down in a jiffy. But now I am cocooning and my house is off limits to her.

Then my phone rings and it is my daughter with alarm in her voice. I explain my predicament and she gives a sigh of relief and placates in a soothing voice: “Now, Mom, your manuscript is in there somewhere and it is only a matter of finding it.” I am not convinced! My daughter is of the computer generation and I am fresh off Noah’s Ark.

Lena issues a few complicated instructions – at least complicated to my non computer-compliant brain – and then she realises that this is not going to work. Her mother is not getting it! So she goes on to a plan B: “Open the side door. Put your laptop on the washing machine in the store room and you stay below in the kitchen well away from me. I will come down, sanitise my hands and sort out the problem, and then sanitise the laptop and leave.” I breathe a sigh of relief.

I put the offending laptop on the washing machine and gingerly turn the key in the side door and nervously have a peep outside. Lena arrives fitted out as if for major surgery and in a few minutes slaps my brazen Apple into submission. I remain at a distance, but it is so good to see her. Seeing her on screen and through the window is good, but this is better. Once she has gone, I lock the door.

Delighted to be united with my manuscript, but shocked by the possibility of losing it, I decide that it is time for a comforting cup of tea and so prepare a tray and take it outside

One wonders if when corona is finally evicted, whenever that may be, will we cocooners be like the calves and chickens in summer when the doors of their houses are opened for the first time – they stand there transfixed by the light of the great outdoors and wonder is it safe to venture out. Will we be like them?

Delighted to be united with my manuscript, but shocked by the possibility of losing it, I decide that it is time for a comforting cup of tea and so prepare a tray and take it outside. The sun is warm on my face and the birds are singing.

Soon I become aware as I sit there that all around me, moving from plant to plant and investigating the budding leaves, are many bees. I’m delighted to see them. Just outside the village are a few beekeepers, and bees can travel three miles from their hive for nectar.

I am so glad that they have come to my garden. It gives an added satisfaction to gardening to know that you are providing food for them. All around me the red and yellow tulips are glowing in the sun, the red in full costume and the more meek yellows making a gentler statement.

Little did I realise when doing the autumn planting how much they would enrich these days of cocooning

The reds are the front-row chorus girls, whereas the more demure yellows stand back a little from their flamboyant sisters. Little did I realise when doing the autumn planting how much they would enrich these days of cocooning. The beautiful colours sustain my spirit.

Just then I spot a new little visitor with a red hat.

I first saw him a few day ago – just as I came out the back door he flitted from the Olearia tree in the yard onto the roof. I had never before seen a bird like this.

Or could it be that he had come other summers but because life was so busy his presence had passed unnoticed?

True for Thomas Gray:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear

How many a flower is born to blush unseen

And waste its sweetness in the desert air.

Or, as my more prosaic grandmother might put it, “casting pearls before swine.” Now through the tree branches I see his little red hat bobbing about and hold my breath in case I frighten him. And then, to my delight, I see another. So, there is a pair. Could they be nest site-hunting? When they fly off, I take a bird feeder off the wall of the back porch and hang it on an inner branch of the tree – just to let the red-hatted pair know that a site is available with free meals attached, and that they are welcome to build here and avail of all the facilities. I will have to wait and see.

A Cocoon With A View by Alice Taylor is published by O’Brien Press, RRP €8.99