Hooray! Hurrah! At last I’ve been able to connect the camera to the laptop via wi-fi and get all my pictures and video off the 64GB high speed SD card. The pictures above are just two of 203 jpgs and 40 video clips. Now for the process of sorting, naming, adjusting and editing them. Bored? Me? Never.

The trick was not to expect the camera to appear as a drive or folder in “This PC” but to look further down to Network. Drop that down and there it was as a network computer. I had to turn Sharing files and folders on, which is a bit dangerous in this hostile environment, but as soon as I’d finished copying, I turned it off again.

The copying! There were 243 files adding up to about 45GB. Over a wi-fi network transfer, it took more than an hour. It was so slow I dozed off and went back to the bed. But it was done when I awoke.

Now to make another backup copy to my 2TB portable drive in my suitcase, to be sure, to be sure as they say in Ireland. Then I can erase the hi-speed SD card and use it again. (Update: where are the RAW files? There should be a RAW counterpart for every still image, but they didn’t copy across and I can’t see them on the card. Huh? It means I can’t reformat the card until I find them or I’m sure they’re not there.)

Then to run the video clips through Mercalli, the miracle image stabilisation software to smooth them out. Then to try to select and edit the best bits together, knowing that it will be impossible to upload them over this sloooow, connection. Then to use ICC Profile Converter to make reduced size copies in sRGB profile for use on the web (I shoot in Adobe RGB for its wider colour gamut. You can always go down, but you can’t go up.)

Then to make contact sheets of the best shots. Then to stitch the panorama shots together using AutoStitch.

Me, bored? Not likely.

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Another night of disturbed sleep; not too bad but I got up at about 2.30am for an hour, had a cup of chamomile tea until I was sleepy again and went back to bed. I thought I slept OK but really I dozed and woke at 5.30am, then only dozed until 7.30am. Hence I’ve just crashed 11am – 12.30pm.

I delayed going to breakfast until after 9am thinking to avoid the crowds but it was still packed. This is a BIG hotel. Three floors, two buildings, I’d estimate 300 rooms. Only one restaurant. Not good. In fact the architects should be shot. The corridors are vast, echoing, hard tiled spaces with lots of wasted space. Bloody kids are playing in the corridors even at midnight and after. Furniture is scraping on floors above me, doors are banging, big thuds on the floor as if someone is jumping, late into the night. Not too loud as to really disturb me, but what’s going on? These are the Asian guests I’m hearing, judging by the language being spoken.

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I had a shower with the leg compression stocking on and it dried out quite quickly so that’s OK. I’ll have a look soon and see what’s happening. 2.30pm – lunch.

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 I watched a DVD last night, Left Behind with Nicolas Cage … It doesn’t matter, because if you see it, run away. It’s terrible. It’s an embarrassment to the stars. What were they thinking when they accepted the roles? Money, I suppose, there couldn’t be any other reason.

It seems to be some pitch to the hard core Christians in the USA. The hero is an airline pilot on the NY to London run. He’s cheating on his wife, who’s an evangelistic Christian in NY. His daughter hates being preached to by the mother. She meets this hunky TV reporter who’s going on the flight to London with the father as pilot.

Suddenly, The Rapture occurs. In a flash, all the children and the good people, God’s Chosen, are taken to Heaven, leaving only a pile of clothes and belongings on the floor or seats. Wow, all those nude people together in Heaven. The co-pilot is one of those taken, sorry, Taken. I feel the need to capitalise everything here.

From then on it becomes a disaster movie, with the plane running out of fuel and there being no airport to land at (why? there are thousands of airports. Why can’t he land at one?) Then there’s a mid air collision, a fuel leak, he can’t make it to NY, he can’t go higher or lower, and on and on with this drivel.

The daughter somehow finds a freeway under construction and manages to use a 4WD pickup truck to push all the barriers out of the way. To make it visible to her father’s plane, she conveniently finds drums of petrol and knows just how to set them alight to make a beacon. The plane lands on this freeway and pulls up just about one foot from a petrol tanker truck. it’s a bloomin’ miracle. Daughter falls into the arms of TV hunk reporter, then into Dad’s arms. All live happily ever after on this Earth of sinners.

What a heap of garbage! What a waste of good plastic. I only finished it because I had to see what happened. Oh, I forgot the woman on the plane who brought out a pistol, convinced that it was all a hoax to steal her son from her. How did she get a pistol through security? Then there was the nice Muslim guy, and the nasty dwarf, and the aggressive businessman who becomes enlightened and becomes a nice guy. And the actress who takes a big hit of white powder of some kind, but still manages to sound reasonable. Oh bloody ‘ell. What a joke. It put me to sleep, I can tell you.

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I don’t like to complain, but …

New problem. Since yesterday afternoon the hotel has been playing their music in the corridors. It’s that endless, tuneless, boring “elevator music”. At first I couldn’t work out what it was, it was just snatches of a woman singing, but I’ve realised it’s all through the vast echoing corridors outside my room and seeping under the door. I’m sick of it!

I think I’m going to have to ask them to stop it. I can’t bear the thought of another night of it. It’s not all night, but it went very late last night.

The room in this hotel is good – very comfortable, except that I wish I had an armchair. But the crowded dining area (there’s only one), ditto for the small pool, this awful boring corridor music and the terrible unsecured internet mark it down badly.