The unthinkable has happened.  It has given me seven years' worth of sturdy service.  I've no idea how long a computer hard disk should be reliable.  There has been, I suppose, ample warning over the last year that this computer was groaning under the weight of trying to behave itself, following instructions and doing its technological best to serve my needs.

Because of its strange behaviour I've changed peripherals, hoping in that way to solve the problem of balky creakiness, since at times the peculiar things that have happened seemed to point, for example, to the mouse or the keyboard.  And sure enough, there would be months at a stretch where nothing untoward would occur of a really disturbing nature.

Other than that the hard disk was increasingly slowing down.  I still had 60% worth left of free space.  The RAM was doubtless being affected.  I was diligent about cleaning up files on a regular basis, and ensuring that corrupted files were taken care of as well through the process of constantly putting it through disk defragmenting.  And then, of course, having a virus protection on the go.

Perhaps all of that helped.  And perhaps the poor old thing was simply no longer capable of being restored to full functionality.  It began to evince unmistakable signs of fatigue that nothing I could do would convince it that it had a job to do and it should carry on.  When it finally began to stutter-groan audibly and loudly, and become truly recalcitrant I knew of a certainty I was in trouble.

With no option but to force my old faithful to a complete shut-down, which it sturdily resisted, I was unable to get it back up again; it was intent on its last and lasting, final slumber.  But then I prevailed, even though it presented me with a notice writ large of its resignation.  Managing to somehow revive it, I realize now that it is only temporary.