When I am an old woman I’ll wear a big notice around my neck with a reminder to back up my computer frequently...

I’ll not panic when Mark shouts up to me in the kitchen “your computer was making a funny noise and just went phttt....”

I’ll not go into meltdown myself because there’s a cake in the oven and mushroom soup on the hob....

I'll stay calm even though we are going off later on today and I ought to be packing.

I'll not get cross with that little box which keeps nagging me with the words "It is x days since you backed up your computer" and x is a number rather larger than 10.

I put the kettle on and make a cup of coffee before strolling down and surveying the situation myself.

I won't even panic about the horrible smell of hot plastic which is coming from the back of my computer.

because

After a week of saying "I must back my computer up", I actually did it last night so everything was saved. Not only that, but Mark's call to the Sony Viao helpline gave him all the information he needed to restore the system completely and incredibly, half an hour later, all is back to normal.

You have no idea how happy this household is now.

I write this blog post this morning as a gentle reminder to "Back up your data. Start doing it now" (apologies) I had a (very) lucky escape just now.

Oh, and the cake is yummy by the way.  The recipe is here