Yesterday was quite fruitful - my other half took me away from the computer (probably sensed my rising stress levels lol).
Finished up buying a Toshiba laptop and ended up with 512gb model instead of 1gb ram model. Soon added 2gb for £29 in store so now has 2.5gb ram - better than all of my machines lol.
Yes I could have done it myself, but I thought it a fair price - but what do I know (also building up a rapport with the local company - might get me favours in future lol).
No doubt in future I'll be on another forum for help setting up a wifi to enable said PC to be used remotely.
Steve