Sunday housekeeping

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There are no photographs today, not even the hill, because it is raining so hard I dare not take my camera out. Also, the battery died and I quite forgot to recharge it, but that point, fortunately, is moot.

I am going south for a few days, and I am not taking my computer or my camera with me. They are too heavy for the train; I do not want to be stomping through Aberdeen station like a beast of burden. I did consider not blogging at all, but for some reason I cannot countenance that. So I have decided that there shall be little, minimal bulletins. (Because of course you dear readers cannot survive unless I tell you what I am thinking at all times. Oh, what has this medium done to my sense of proportion?)

I shall have my iPad with me, so I can bash out a few words each day and then I can feel my work is done. I got the iPad 'for work', which is the most pathetic excuse I ever heard, and then got it home in a flush of giddy excitement, and could not see the point of it at all. What had everyone been banging on about? I felt the usual rush of fury at Steve bloody Jobs and his takeover of the world, and his silly insistence on wearing those damn polo-necks. I also went off into a rage at all the Apple people, and how they act as if they have found the secret of the Holy Grail, while those of us drones who favour the PC do not even know we are born. Then I calmed down, and slowly did get the point.

I am not certain that the thing is much good 'for work' but it does make reading the internet a pleasure. It has a very, very good picture quality, so watching programmes on it has a high aesthetic joy. Now Apple has stopped throwing conkers at the BBC and given in to the iPlayer I am very happy, because I can keep up with all my favourite political programmes. The downloaded version of The Times is a bit of a miracle. I have even started reading ebooks on it. Although the refusal to allow Flash is just silly, but I suppose we can't have everything.

Anyway, that is the useful, light piece of technology on which I shall be reporting. All of which is slightly beside the point, but then I'm not quite sure there was a point to begin with. I have travel fever, and have already packed and repacked three times, and am wondering whether I should allow time for two or three punctures on the way to the station.

Tomorrow I shall be like one of those shouty people on their mobile telephones: yes dear, I'm ON THE TRAIN.