A new computer in the house reminds me of how clothing worked when we were kids; enter a new coat and everyone else’s stuff shunted down a child. Martin bought himself a new laptop when we were in England (higher spec, more choice, and better priced than Argentina). So, I inherit the older laptop, and the even older desk-top, which had previously been Martin’s old desktop and more recently my computer-shared with the kids, has become the kid machine. We (that’s the royal we, more accurately, Martin) rebuilt it with a minimum of software mostly for film-watching and game-playing, and shuffled it across onto a trolley on its own. And now I have my desk back.
I spent most of a morning devoiding it of sweet wrappers, Lego bricks, and assorted other juvenile accoutrements, followed by sorting nine months worth of filing (can’t always blame the kids for everything), and lastly cleaning away the intermediate layers consisting of paint fallen from the ceiling and the plaster which is dropping off the walls.