One week since I came home and I still feel dislocated. Missing Kathryn all over again and so want to be back in Sydney, but went up to London on Wednesday to see my darling gorgeous Florence and that made me feel better.
Apologies for the lack of posting this week as well, am still catching up on post and parcels and bills and shooting off letters to Inland Revenue who say I did not file a tax return and owe them money when I did and they owe me……..
So last night sat down, opened laptop to write and the lights flickered and then went back on though everything was very dim indeed, ten minutes later they flickered again and then I was plunged into Stygian gloom and everything came grinding to a halt. Hunt for candles, neighbours knocking to see if I was also in darkness and that was that really – my evening totally buggered. My supper which was in the oven ceased cooking, could do nothing at all and got onto the Power Cut help line which I now have on my mobile as this happens quite often in this area, and I must say they were most helpful and efficient and I never thought I would say that about a utility company. They sent me text updates to my mobile to let me know what was happening and an hour or so later light shone forth but by then I had lost all impetus to write so hied me off to bed instead.
After that long and rambling preamble, here I am.
Me and my Kindle – this was a Christmas present from Helen and James specifically for my Australian trip and it has proved a marvellous travelling companion. I have already burbled on about it in previous posts so will not repeat myself here, but really I am in love with this sleek, elegant piece of technology which is housed in a smoky blue leather case and looks so classy. I thought at first I would not get used to the page flickering as you press the button to go forward but I was told by a regular user that I would soon not even register it and so it proved. To have all these books tucked away (at the last count over 150) has completely stopped my panicking at the thought of running out of reading matter and with one fell swoop has negated the need for a back up book and then a back up to the back up book in case I am stuck on a train or plane somewhere.
I will admit to slipping a few paperbacks in my suitcase and also at the last minute tucking a World's Classic edition of Trollope's The Claverings into my flight carry on bag just in case something awful happened and my Kindle expired. As it happened I got a bit of a fright while using it when a steward reaching in the overhead lockers dropped a pillow on it and it went dead. I shrieked and he went all worried and O My God what have I done but after a few seconds of fiddling the blank screen which had appeared sorted itself out. I gave him the evil eye and demanded a strong vodka and tonic to restore my equilibrium which he rushed to provide. A nasty moment I can tell you.
I have posted about discovering Jo Nesbo as Amazon cunningly put one of his books on special offer on the Kindle site and then I downloaded the rest while I was away. And here is the joy of the Kindle. I would normally binge read a new author, buy all the books and then have them on my shelves. I don't necessarily want to keep them or have them in my library so I end up passing them on or taking them to a charity shop. If I do decide I want to keep for a future re-read then on my overloaded shelves they go. This way I keep them and can return to them anytime I like and they take Up No Room.
So I Love my Kindle and it sits alongside my reading of real, proper books with their lovely covers and crisp pages which I love turning. When I first started Kindle reading I kept trying to turn the page over and am now finding when reading a normal book I press the side of the page to flick onwards which is a bit silly but am now getting out of this habit. I have said before, and will say again, how cross this E-book versus the paper book articles in the media make me, the doom laden forecasts of the death of publishing as we know it – all so unnecessary. One sits alongside the other and being able to track down out of print books which would normally cost me a fortune to buy if I could find them in a second hand bookshop, and find I can download them for pence or for free, is surely a wonderful thing and will expand one's reading rather than restrict it.
Kathryn, bless her heart, had saved up some of her books for me 'Just in case you want to read a proper book Mum' and with those, the few I took with me and the Kindle, I managed beautifully. When I realise that I read about 20 books while I was away and I thought of the weight of my suitcase if I had taken that amount with me, I am so glad that my travelling companion took the trip to Australia.
I should say that when I came back home and found a pile of parcels waiting for me it was tremendously exciting to open them all and have these pristine, brand new books in my hands it was a lovely feeling. Since I came home have had about another 15 delivered and several more offered to me via email today. An old fashioned reader I will remain but there is a place for new reading technology in my life as well and I love both.
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