8.30am Mesen, Steven pulls up in his car ... resident troubleshooter for all things World War One.
I jump into his car and we drive off to his office in the heart of Mesen village where he leaves me with his computer and my camera gear. The plan is that I download my 600+ images, organise them, burn them to various cds and hand them over at the end of each day.
Steven leaves.
I'm locked in the townhall office where I set to work, diligently ... as is my way.
Steven's computer is entirely in Dutch. I'm suspicious it's in local dialect Dutch because working my way around his computer is truly terrifying, bordering on the impossible.
I phone home many times for translations.
Gert is a patient man.
Then I lose the best of my images from that cemetery near Ieper, the one where the white stones had a thunderstorm sky backdrop.
Labelling them 'the ones that got away' I work on.
Many more phone consultations and I realise that there is no way I dare use his photoshop elements program on my images. I need a small familiarisation session and there I am, alone in his office and he's organising things for the Queens and various other VIPs on the morrow.
I start burning the images to cd anyway, just to be safe.
This goes badly initially ... 2 hours into the process now and I'm ready to cry a little.
There is a moment of complete trauma when I think that I've saved all images as GIMP images (don't ask). This moment passes and all good feeling is recovered when I discover those fish that got away and alles goed for a moment ... just for a moment.
The images are okay, they're jpg and the lost ones are found BUT THEN it takes 20 minutes to burn each cd on Steven's computer and I have 3 cds to burn ...
Many hours twiddling my thumbs and I'm back at the Peace Village waiting for the tour round the old mine craters before the concert tonight ...
You don't speak West-Flemish? It's the closest Dutch gets to ancient English.
ReplyDeletePost some pictures on your bloggie, will ya.
Oh I am soo excited about your travels and adventures and cannot wait to hear all about them personally!!! Wow!! It sounds soo exciting. I am so thrilled for your ability to be there and have all the wonderful experiences you are having!! Looking forward to a long talk!! Keep it up!!!
ReplyDeleteYep - definitely sounds like a very good reason to get another laptop.
ReplyDeleteYour unique images are worth way too much to take the risk of losing them due to hardware issues.
How frustrating and nerve wracking for you! But you stuck with it and eventually got it done. :-)
ReplyDeleteComputer issues make me mad. We've had more than a few with internet access here in my niece's apartment.
ReplyDeleteWest Flemish ... I learnt their way of saying 'goodbye' but it's too late at night to work out the spelling.
ReplyDeleteI'll settle back in ML and then we can catch up on skype ... you would have loved it all.
Peter, my external keyboard died tonight ... it's getting silly now. I hope alles goed over in your world.
Thanks Christina but it's good to be back in Antwerpen and finally getting everything sorted out on gear I know.
v-grrrl, it's so incredibly frustrating, isn't it. I can't imagine how I existed without the internet now.