Cheap day return to Newcastle please

I sat on Durham station, attired in my thick black winter coat, magenta scarf and stripy matching gloves. My laptop bag was strung over my shoulder, a pristine envelope wrapped tuna subway melt occupying one hand, ready and waiting to be enjoyed on the train. It was two o'clock and, breakfast naught but a distant memory, while the banana I'd hastily scoffed inbetween rushing from Lang Power to a History Seminar had long been digested, my stomach grumbled in anticipation.

It was a tricky decision, but one that had to be made. Should I unwrap the sandwich, take one bite and then the train arrive, leaving me to haul two heavy bags and a half-eaten sub (not easy) on the train? Or should I starve a little longer and wait to enjoy on the train?

Difficult.

Bt the decision was taken out of my hands when my phone, currently lost in the depths of my coat pockets, vibrated violently, announcing that I had a text. Sandwich dilemma forgotten, I rooted around in my left pocket for the offending thing. It's amazing what lost treasures I unearthed in that pocket.

Keys to door, flat and entire accommodation building...(could be useful)...One balled up mitten...(red and two sizes too small, definitely not mine, don't ask me why it was in my pocket)...one fluff coated half-eaten cookie from a week ago (an unexpected tasty treat, I no longer have many compunctions about what I eat- a cookie is a cookie after all)...a plethora of Iceland receipts...oh and that's where my photocopying card went! The mobile was finally located and I was poring over the text when the train arrived.

I glanced up, briefly. Edinburgh Waverly...nah, not mine...it's going to Edinburgh...funny, I could have sworn a minute ago the announcement for platform 2 was Newcastle...hang on a minute...

Damn it!

That is my train!

Enter girl running faster than she's possibly ever ran before across platform, laden like a pack horse to get on train while doors are beeping, just before (literally!) the doors slide shut.

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So why was I going to Newcastle laden like a packhorse with a laptop and a subway melt on Friday at two o'clock? You may ask.

The answer is, simply:

My bloody HP laptop. (Insert multitude of curse words here).

That laptop is the BANE of my life. It's not because of the blue screen of death.

It's not because of the frequent crashes.

It's not because I had two (TWO!!) comp sci students look at it and neither could offer me a solution and suggested taking it back to John Lewis'.

Oh no. It's because that laptop is tempramental. It's sneaky that laptop is. It can't be trusted.

You know what it did?

I'm going to tell you what it did.

It, while crashing non-stop for me, decided to behave for the John Lewis tech people servicing it, and didn't . crash . once . I got a voicemail yesterday informing me that "there's nothing wrong whatsoever with my laptop".

Why? Why??? Whhhhyyyy???? I thought we were friends laptop!!! I thought you liked me!!! Why have you betrayed me like this???!!!!! Why, oh why couldn't you show your pretty bright blue messages of "Windows has been shut down to prevent serious error being sustained to your computer" or "THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER" or "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA" and reams of codes to the kind people at John Lewis who could actually SOLVE these problems??? Do you hate me??? Do you want to punish me???

I am bereft.

I loved that laptop, really I did.

My confidence has been betrayed.

Lets just hope the full Windows wipe and restore to factory conditions will fix the horrid-blue-screen problem.

In the meantime we're on a trial period, the laptop and I.

I just don't know whether we can continue from here...