Back in the days when Stevan was working in the IT industry, he liked to build up relationships with suppliers which would be long lasting and  beneficial to both parties.  I've tried to continue his good example in the associations I've built up within Ripples Crafts too.  And back in what would now be considered the dark ages of IT i.e. 1990, sitting in an office in Shepherds Bush, London, he saw an advert in an IT magazine for a company in Perthshire which piqued his interest - EQ Consultants.  Contact was made, and thus started a long working relationship with Jim Bisset, a relationship which Stevan took from company to company as his own career developed.  And it is a relationship which continues today.  Despite Stevan's current status of student I'm afraid I'm guilty of making use of his computer expertise without any qualms!  And this week there was a disaster in the dye shed when I was faced with a Hobson's Choice of catching my old laptop which had taken a tumble and thereby dropping a pan of boiling water over my bare feet and legs -  I obviously had to helplessly watch my laptop crash onto the tiled floor in my shed.  And so Stevan's long working association with Jim came to the fore again.

Our choices when it comes to electrical equipment is limited given that we generate all our own power with wind and solar devices.  So we have to use laptops which require minimum amounts of power and have long lasting rechargeable batteries.  And while we had a particular laptop in mind as a replacement, Jim was able to advise very wisely about why we should not consider that particular one, but gave good and valid reasons as to why we should consider the one we settled on.  So on Tuesday afternoon after the workshop disaster we placed our order with Jim.  On Thursday morning the new laptop arrived - brilliant service as usual. Thanks Jim.  And by Thursday evening Stevan had it up and running for me, and he'd managed, somehow, to rescue all my data from my old laptop which I'd failed to back up!  Thanks Stevan.

Compared to my previous laptop which was (what some may call!) garishly pink, this one is a rather sombre black, but as colour is my livelihood, I suspect I may have to find ways of brightening it up.  Any suggestions?

And because photographs of computers are, in my view, rather mundane, I leave you instead with a photo which Stevan took this week.  We've been having absolutely glorious weather in Assynt over the past few days, and earlier in the week Altnaharra, which is not too far from us, recorded the highest temperature for the whole of the UK.  It was close to 28 degrees.   This picture was taken along the coast from Achmelvich, and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was somewhere in the Med.



Just look at the colour of the water: