They say sons never leave home...

... Well, I've got a new theme on that. I go to their house and do the tidying up!

Fair enough with David. Having a dislocated ankle and broken leg does warrant a bit of TLC. So I was happy to give his place a good seeing to before he got out of hospital, leg in plaster.

John has flown off to Tenerife for a week's holiday with Emma. There was some doubt whether he'd actually get on the plane but all seemed calm when I dropped them off at Stansted Monday morning. As I drove back some of his parting words echoed through my mind. No, not 'I'll really miss you dad", or since in his mind he was probably taking a fast jet to oblivion "Thanks for everything you've done for me". Attached to "Thanks for the lift" were the words that resonated... "I've left you a little bit of washing up, can't leave it til I get back since it'll be all green."

So the image above is what greeted me the following day in his kitchen. Think he owes me!

More images below. And yes, that really is burnt on fat from chicken breasts and scalded milk in the pan. Think the arrangement of hat and gloves by the front door is particularly twee. And that's industrial strength air fresher in the loo... no surprise there.

Off for a week in a caravan in Hunstanton tomorrow, sans iPad, so it'll be a week or so to the next post.

Another few days disappear

The regularity with which minutes or hours flash by has increased markedly since I retired a few weeks ago. But whole days? Well at least there's a good reason for the last few days going into a black hole.

It started on Wednesday evening about 22:30. I'd been dropping off for about an hour or so beforehand but finally decided it was time to head for the hills when I got a call on my mobile from son David. "Dad, I've got a bit of a problem, can you help? I've fallen over while taking Jazz (his Jack Russell terrier) for a walk and I might have broken something."

Now when David says he's taken Jazz for a walk you'd better believe it. They'll go cross country for miles together and doing it in the dark appears to be no problem. He said he was on a footpath somewhere behind the gravel pits half way towards Huntingdon, not somewhere I'm particularly familiar with. So off I went in the car to get near the general area. More 'phone calls and several abortive drives down narrow public footpaths later and I finally found the one he was on... as I slowly negotiated the narrow and bumpy route and rounded a corner there was Jazz peering towards me, sitting guard over David who was laid on his side.

It was pretty obvious something was seriously wrong since he was in a lot of pain and could hardly stand on his good foot. So I manoeuvre him into the front seat of the car, we dropped Jazz off at his home and headed up to casualty where he was diagnosed with a compound fracture of the fibula and a dislocated ankle. Slapped in a plaster cast and told to come back for an operation at 08:00 that day... by now it was 02:00 Thursday.

On our return we sat in the hospital from 08:00 to 14:00 before being told we'd have to come back Friday since there were no free slots in the emergency theatre list. Had the first pleasure of taking Jazz out for a walk... spent 30 minutes getting 30 metres away from his front door with Jazz's nose pointed 99% of the time in the direction David would come from if he was catching us up. Getting back to the front door took 3 seconds. Boy, does that dog love his master!

Back again Fri 08:00 and David was taken into theatre at 13:30. He was kept in over the weekend and came out this evening with his leg in plaster for at least four weeks. Jazz and I are now best friends and have managed to extend our walks to over an hour each time. Gets a bit wobbly when he sees a dog bigger than himself... he'd have a go at anything if he was off his lead. But I'm sure I can train him out of that over the next few weeks.

And the photo? It being a family trait to find humour in adversity (particularly if it's not you suffering) I was desperate to get a shot of David in his wheelchair. Not surprisingly he was a bit camera shy so I got a shot of the transport while he popped into the toilet. See below for an image of his legs... think the arrow was put there by the nurse to confirm right way up.

Sadly no squash for at least three months so I'm down the gym tomorrow for some running machine time. No pitch and putt for a while and we're going to have to see how he copes on the pool table down The Legion.

First iPad experiences

Anyone remotely familiar with this blog will have picked up that I'd finally taken the plunge after months of admiring the Apple iPad since it first came out early in 2010. But it was never an easy decision. Even when the launch of the new slimmer, faster iPad 2 coincided with my small win on the Premium Bonds and the magic words from Linda... 'I suppose you'll be getting that iPad then?', I still agonised over whether to stump up the £500+ for the kit I'd need. Yes, the iPad itself (in 32gb mode) is under £400, but then there's the Smartcover, the camera/SD card connector, the apps... Oh yes, and the latest bit of kit, a Just Mobile alupen.

Was it just another toy? Although it had been out for over a year, with tablet PCs just taking off was there a price to pay as an early adopter? Would one of the other models being launched be a better option?And most importantly... could I easily blog from an iPad? Lots of adverse comments about this... until Blogsy was launched. That's what swung it for me.

So how has it gone? You'll gather from the fact there's been no post for a week or so that it's been a bit of a tussle. I only started to use Blogsy on Monday, having struggled with a whole set of other challenges first as follows...Setting up the iPad was a breeze. Started up no problem, charged up OK, connected to my WiFi easily. So getting up and running was a piece of cake, and using the iPad is a dream. Always on so no hanging around and no frustrating and mysterious delays, unbelievably thin and smart, much more intuitive to use with a brilliant display.

Then came the selection of apps... and a Microsoft Office equivalent was reasonably pressing since I had some minutes to do for the Allotment Association. Went for Quickoffice at £8.99 (what a refreshing difference to Microsoft's price of from £60 to £400 with no free updates!) since could import and export files in Microsoft format and was about half the cost of Apple's own equivalents. Not sure if I've made the right choice... word processor is pretty basic and having read about the spreadsheet struggling to import reasonable sized Excel files, my first attempt with a file hit a problem I've not yet had time to delve into.

Further apps followed to give me what I need at present... Brushes for artwork, Notes Plus for a more comprehensive note taking app than the one supplied for free from Apple, Accounts for personal finance management... oh,and of course Angry Birds to keep the grandchildren (and me) amused. Only one I think I'm missing is a combined calendar and task list... might use the calendar supplied with the iPad since it looks attractive, though it doesn't lend itself easily to listing tasks.

The biggest problem I've found is the difficulty of archiving files. Apple make it very easy to do this for photos and music, but to safely store other files is a bit of a struggle. Upload buttons on web sites such as Windows Live Sky Drive or Picasa don't work on the iPad. Although you can connect an SD card using the camera connection kit you can only back up photos and music. My solution has been to set up a special Hotmail email address for anything I want to archive. At least once a week I'll hook up the iPad to my laptop to back up apps and check for updates. At the same time I'll access the archive emails and store them on Sky Drive. That enables me to then download those files onto the iPad when I need to update them.

And then there's the general pain of getting used to a different operating system. For example, using a Windows system to email a file you go into your email program and attach the file. Not using an iPad. There's no way to attach a file in the email app. You have to go to the file's app and drag the file onto the email icon, or open the file and use the send option.

Am I at last on top of things? Not quite... I've yet to see if I can post this entry in the blog as something that looks half decent. Blogsy works differently than what I'm used to and it's certainly no Windows LiveWriter. There's no WYSIWYG functionality and what help it gives you is pretty basic. Want a table... you're into HTML coding to do that. So I'm going to have to spend more time fiddling about in HTML to get the look I want.

Oh, and I've yet to transfer my appointments and tasks from my mobile 'phone ('cause I'm fed up of the alarm on the mobile regularly going off) and get all my contacts transferred.It's proving to be a long hard slog... hopefully worth it in the end 'cause it is a beautiful bit of kit.

Update: You might also be interested in reading how I'm getting on with my iPad one year on in the post Apple of my iPad.

I’m at home today…

… and not moving a muscle. Been up since 06:00… not unusual other than I was awake from about 04:00. By way of compensation to Linda I’ve committed myself to a number of small jobs around the house. Clean the windows, pot up the patio plants we bought yesterday, cook some Italian peasant bread etc etc.

Me staying at home at any time, particularly when the sun is shining, is nothing short of a miracle. What’s the cause of this strange behaviour? Just a short few words…

Yes, the Apple iPad 2 is due to be delivered today! So one of three things is going to happen…

1. It’ll arrive early, say 09:00, and having committed myself to all these small jobs I’ll have to suffer the agony of a quick fumble before honouring my promises.
   
2. It’ll arrive late, say 18:00, leaving me hardly any time at all before sons David and John arrive for their weekly home roast dinner and film. That’ll mean I won’t know any more about the iPad than they do, giving them full authority to pile in with lots of advice on how I should be using it.
   
3. It’ll arrive about midday after I’ve finished all the jobs and won’t be able to resist a snooze in the afternoon sunshine. The UPS delivery man will feebly knock on the front door and, receiving no reply, will return the precious package back to base leaving a card to tell me of my misfortune. Knowing that I’ve caused an unnecessary delay in getting my hands on the iPad will drive me bonkers!

Oh, the agony and the ecstasy! But all going well the next blog post should be from the iPad via Blogsy.