AFTER much nagging from my husband to "get it sorted out", I finally rang a computer doctor last week to see if she could connect my new computer to the Internet.

I say "new". In fact, I've had it 18 months. I got it to replace my old laptop which I'd damaged by spilling wine on it (one of the hazards of working from home). But, having had such a horrible, frustrating time loading up the first one with all the relevant hardware and software, I'd grown to resent time wasted on computers and hadn't been keen to go through the whole process again.

Besides, up until last week my old computer had done the job adequately. You could only read half the screen and its tiny memory meant it wouldn't download anything larger than a limerick. But at least I was able to pick up e-mail. Actually, I always found it such a palaver that I only bothered to log on once a month.

We've got a friend in Papua New Guinea who, despite being on the net himself, has realised it's much quicker to communicate with us by airmail!

When the old machine finally died on me last Thursday, however, I knew it was time to get to grips with the configurations of my "new" one. On Friday computer whizz Liz came round to do the hard bit. But half an hour later, with not a search engine in sight, she concluded there was a problem with my Internet provider and suggested I contact the helpline.

On Saturday morning I called the helpline and was guided into all sorts of unchartered territory on my laptop by a man who must have had Windows 95 loaded on to his brain.

But it was all to no avail. When I tried to dial up the Internet, I received a complicated message of which the only word I understood was "error". The helpline man told me there was a problem with my Windows software and that I should reinstall it.

By this time, my husband was regretting he'd told me to "get it sorted out". It was already lunchtime and there was nothing in the house except stale bread, two eggs and a jar of capers.

We had poached eggs and capers while I tried to reinstall Windows, only to discover there was also a problem with my CD Rom. Reluctantly, I shut down the computer so that we could get to the shops before they closed.

On Sunday, some friends called round for coffee and the husband offered to look at my computer. Three hours later, his wife had gone home while he was still immersed in something called Bios. We'd lost the CD Rom driver - and my husband has almost lost the will to live.

The long and short of this is that I'm still not connected and I loathe my computer more than ever. The answer might be to reboot it.... out of the window.

PS: Just in case I ever make it back into cyberspace, my e-mail address is jbealing@stral.co.uk

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.