It's happening again

I’m still not happy about this computer and the way it’s operating. Sometimes it’s fine, but last night it was goooooiiinnnngggg ssssoooooo sssllllooooowww it was like wading through treacle, or one of those nightmares when you try to run away from something horrid and the harder you try the slower you go. The virus scan said there’s nothing there (though it’d blocked a Trojan horse several times; something about a bus; I suppose they always come in groups) and I cleaned all the spyware off (about 15 a day) bit it didn’t help. This time I’m sure I wouldn’t worry about it so much if I knew how to do a backup onto this shiny new hard drive, but I don’t even know where to plug the flipping thing in. Surely it can’t be that hard? It’d dial to the Internet all right but it wouldn’t recognise the password (Error 718 apparently) – which was right. I did a restart and then that was accepted, then after a while it froze on me. So I gave up and went to bed. Lights out at 10.15? Almost unheard of – and it meant I woke early, which was annoying.

It had been a bit of a horrid day anyway because my mother thought her old dog would have to be put down, but my brother managed to get over there (it took him over 2 hours) and get him on his feet again, and the vet said he wasn’t too bad. But today the dog’s down again, and although Mother’s got a towel under him he simply won’t try to get up. And if he can’t get up that’s the end. If I lived nearer her then I know I’d be strong enough to get him up (he’s a large golden retriever, and Mother’s frail) but it’s over 3 hours to drive there even when there isn’t any snow. I hate feeling so helpless, with her facing this all alone.