Joys of iPads

As may be expected, we had a very good evening last night, sharing red medicine and gossip with Graham and Beryl. Thanks both, it felt like the start of the Crick hullabaloo :)

(Note to Arthur Ransome fans, that is not a disparagement of the boat handling skills or standards of considerate boating of any of those involved... I have to be so careful these days.)

One of Graham's foibles is to maintain that he is an IT incompetent; he coined the phrase tethered androids during a discussion about alternative approaches to internet access, creating a wonderful image in amongst the fumes of cab sauv in my brain.

This made me wonder what he would have said if he could have seen us as he set off this morning. We were having a very lazy start indeed, what with the late night and the fact that the Sunday opening hours meant we didn't need to set off for Sainsbury's until just before half ten.

When I went through into the galley to make the first thing tea and have my usual early morning potter, I discovered that I'd left the WiFi hotspot running on the smart phone (a tethered android, in fact). So as we'd taken our iPads to bed to read our ebooks as usual, we were able to sit supping the char, checking emails, browsing t'internet, looking up the weather prospects and so on.

It's a good example of the way in which the iPads have made the IT stuff even simpler. I did turn the Mini on this afternoon, whilst the engine was running to do a washload. This was so that I could update the Braidbar Owners' Group Pub Guide and change the credit card details on a load of accounts (we've just had replacement cards issued with a different CVC number on the back).

That kind of thing is much easier on the full size machine, but for knocking out this blog, routine emails or reading the Independent the iPad is much handier.

So it's been another quiet day for us; tomorrow we'll head on out, water and rubbish at Peel's Wharf, pump out and diesel at Fazeley Mill, then on up the Glascote Two to Polesworth.